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In 1954, the 18-year-old Irma Kurtz left
New Jersey to travel across Europe, intent on changing the world. She
looked to the Old World for an alternative to the limited challenges and
expectations of home. On her post-war Grand Tour she found some new creeds:
art & culture, beauty & love, but as a young Jewish woman was confronted
by the awful reality of genocide.
Fifty years later, in Mediterranean Tales, Irma revisits Europe following
in the footsteps of Mark Twain’s previous journey. Her ambition: to discover
how and why writers have been inspired by these magical lands.
An accomplished travel writer, Irma has been called 'the female Bill Bryson'
(The Scotsman) and her unique personality gives the impression that she
is no less opinionated or adventurous than the young Mark Twain.
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In 1867 Mark Twain, one of America's most
famous writers, set out by boat to discover the world with his own eyes.
Opinionated and adventurous, his quest was to travel from the Straits
of Gibraltar to Cairo on a great circuit of the Mediterranean Sea.
His adventures filled the columns of San Francisco's Alta California newspaper
and were later published as The Innocents Abroad - a book that redefined
the genre of travel writing with its honesty, clarity and humour.
It still ranks as one of Twain's most accomplished books, and its unflinching
insights and depictions are comparable to Irma Kurtz's observations in
Mediterranean Tales. Notable in the book is the episode in Venice, Italy,
where the gondoliers are inevitably characterized as cheery opportunists
- later in the series Irma has a similar encounter!
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