Anywhere but now

In times of closed borders and suspended travel plans, Anywhere But Now guides the reader through the author's most peculiar experiences in his travels around the world and eases the longing for being abroad.

With agile and seductive writing, Cuenca transports us to bars in New York and Tokyo, street protests in Paris and Istanbul, dance floors in Cape Verde and Vietnam, karaoke bars in Bangkok and Rio. There are also moving scenes—like the mototaxi in Mossoró, the Paris-Milan night train, the nighttime walks in Macau and Buenos Aires—and many surreal and unexpected encounters: with the epiphanic fox in the early hours of the morning in Berlin, a ghost in Portugal, or a Buddhist monastery in Hong Kong. Finally, together with Cuenca, we come to know the corridors of exclusion up close: the Palestinians in Gaza, the underemployed Bolivians in São Paulo, the unusual exchange between Port-au-Prince and New York, masterfully captured in the chronicle "The Hands That Come from Haiti."

Throughout these journeys, we encounter João Paulo Cuenca's novelistic writing and sensitive observation. The hallmarks of his fictional work remain, beginning with the "subject out of place," which is the essence of these travelogues, in which the author claims never to write about tourism, but rather about traveling. The difference? Travel always conceals the hope of revelation—and this book is full of them.

"If every trip is made of moments, count on Cuenca to capture some of them with the sensitivity of someone who seeks unexpected vibes to describe wherever he goes, from a slow dance floor in Cape Verde to a pitch-black night in Stockholm." – Zeca Camargo