{"id":4422,"date":"2026-09-25T12:35:42","date_gmt":"2026-09-25T12:35:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/eurolit.net\/?p=4422"},"modified":"2026-09-25T12:42:11","modified_gmt":"2026-09-25T12:42:11","slug":"listening-to-the-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eurolit.net\/?p=4422","title":{"rendered":"Listening to the World"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Most people travel to see the world, but your work feels more like an effort to help us listen to it. Welcome, Stephen, and thank you for taking the time to sit down with me today.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

From Newsroom to Nomad<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Question<\/strong>: Spending three decades as a journalist, first briefly with the BBC and then with Reuters, meant writing under strict constraints of brevity, objectivity and relentless speed. How did 30 years of hard news reporting shape your transition into travel writing and was there a specific assignment or breaking story that made you realise it was time to swap the press box for the open road?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stephen<\/strong>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You touch on a subject that keenly interests me, the whole transition from hard news reporting to travel writing. I think a good journalist can switch from rapid-fire concise reporting to a gentler descriptive style.\u00a0 You tune in to a different rhythm somehow. Historically, one person who did a brilliant job making this shift was the Soviet journalist Vasily Grossman. He worked as a war correspondent for the Red Army newspaper Krasnaya Zvezda during the Second World War and he covered huge events like the battles of Stalingrad and Kursk, the latter being the deadliest tank engagement in history. He also gave some of the first reports of a Nazi death camp. Then, later in life, he wrote a beautiful travel book, An Armenian Sketchbook (1967). He learned to dwell in lingering fashion on subjects that he felt gave readers the flavour of the place.\u00a0 \u201cThe first thing I saw in Armenia was stone,\u201d he wrote, before expanding on this theme of stoniness.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I don\u2019t believe that there was any one specific news story that made me realise it was time to swap the press box for the open road.\u00a0In the latter part of my career with Reuters, I was mostly a desk editor, rather than a reporter, and leaving the company meant I had more liberty to roam at will and write.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Capturing the Moment<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Q<\/strong>: Travel happens in real time, but writing requires quiet reflection. What does your note-taking process actually look like on the ground, and how do you translate scribbled, chaotic field notes into polished prose without losing the immediate sensory edge of the memory?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stephen<\/strong>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yes, there is some need for quiet reflection! And one certainly doesn\u2019t want to lose that sensory edge of memory, as you call it, so I prefer to write quite soon after the travel experience. When I walked through Portugal, some 1,500 kilometres, I built in time for reflection by doing the journey in three stages. I walked from the northeastern corner of Portugal to Braga, still in the north, and then I went back home to Wales for some rest and some writing. After a few weeks, I returned to Braga and then walked as far as Lisbon. Then, during the short days of January, in 2019, I rested and wrote for a second time in Wales. Finally, I did the last leg of Lisbon to Sagres when the days were longer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I am travelling far from home, I still build in time for writing. In Mozambique in 2024, I knew that one of the most substantial subjects I wanted to report on was the restoration of Gorongosa National Park after the damage wrought by the civil war. So, after a few days in the park, where I talked to people engaged in the work and generally soaked up the atmosphere, I checked into a quiet country hotel nearby and pretty much wrote two full chapters.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Art of the Detour<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Q<\/strong>: To quote you, \u2018the power of a journey lies in the people you speak to and the local stories you uncover along the way\u2019. Could you say more about that? Who do you try to speak to?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stephen<\/strong>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I suppose one talks to people who have a story to tell, who have an enthusiasm for life, for a cause, for a craft, for a place. Passion is surely an overused word these days, as so many companies claim to bring passion to their professional products or services. But the human experience of deep happiness or commitment is real and should be celebrated. I remember when I was close to the end of my Portugal walk, meeting a retired Swiss sea captain who was in raptures over the quality of his life in the Algarve town of Aljezur. When he talked about his contentment, I quickly got out my smartphone and, with his blessing, recorded his account of bliss. It was a totally serendipitous encounter and truly lifted my heart. Then, in a completely different category, are the conversations with the famous. There is, I think, a long tradition in travel writing of authors seeking out literary celebrities, for example. Paul Theroux does this in The Old Patagonian Express. He arranges to meet the legendary Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges and their conversation provides some great copy. Borges was famously Anglophile and when the two met, he declaimed the Lord\u2019s Prayer in Anglo-Saxon. In Mozambique, I sought out one leading writer, Mia Couto, and I felt that I learned about the complexity and the historic traumas of his country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Developing a Voice<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Q<\/strong>: Modern journalism demands that you strip away personal bias and flourish, whereas travel prose relies so much on individual perspective and atmosphere. How did you go about finding your literary voice after 30 years of writing in the neutral tone required by the BBC, then Reuters?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stephen<\/strong>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Well, as it happens, the BBC helped me to find my voice. After I left Reuters, I spent a few years doing the occasional broadcast in what is colloquially called \u201cthe God slot\u201d. I was a Quaker at that time, and since Quakers have traditionally not had a paid priesthood, I was allowed to share this slot with others, such as Anglican vicars, Roman Catholic priests, and rabbis.\u00a0 The idea was to comment on a particular news issue from a faith perspective. When I wrote the texts for these broadcasts, I was inevitably influenced by all those years of writing in a neutral tone for a news agency. But if I started to sound like a Reuters report, the BBC producer working with me on the text would say, \u201cWe want to know what Stephen Powell thinks.\u201d This was quite a novelty! Doing these religious broadcasts wasn\u2019t the only influence, of course. Over the years, with lots of reading and interactions with others, you do shape views on big issues of our time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Immediate Horizon<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Q<\/strong>: What is the subject of your next project, your next journey, and how does it challenge or build upon the themes you have already explored in your previous books?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stephen<\/strong>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I am looking at the possibility of a walk and a book on Crete. I am conscious that there is a very big existing literature on the island and at this point I don\u2019t know Crete at all.\u00a0 But I am fascinated by the fact that on this one island you have everything from Europe\u2019s first advanced civilization, the Minoan, to the very modern phenomenon of over-tourism. As a Welshman, I am interested in the fact that Crete is apparently content to be part of Greece despite having a distinct identity. I believe that Welsh people in the coming years will have to decide whether they want to remain citizens of the United Kingdom or opt for independence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I anticipate that the journey will bring me back again to conversations with people. What do Cretans talk about over coffee in their village caf\u00e9s? What are their hopes and fears and dreams? How have they been shaped by their incredibly varied history, which included nearly five centuries of rule by the Venetian Republic?\u00a0 There are rich themes to explore!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Stephen Powell proudly shares that he has lived and worked on every continent except Antarctica.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

More details about his work here: https:\/\/stephenpowellauthor.com\/<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

And his books so far: https:\/\/amoz.onl\/758<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

‘I suppose one talks to people who have a story to tell, who have an enthusiasm for life, for a cause, for a craft, for a place. Passion is surely an overused word these days, as so many companies claim to bring passion to their professional products or services. But the human experience of deep happiness or commitment is real and should be celebrated’<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":4423,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[52,50,123,470,15],"tags":[159,472,471],"class_list":["post-4422","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interview","category-non-fiction","category-picks","category-stephen-powell","category-travel","tag-interview","tag-stephen-powell","tag-travel-writing"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eurolit.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4422","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eurolit.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eurolit.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eurolit.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eurolit.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4422"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/eurolit.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4422\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4430,"href":"https:\/\/eurolit.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4422\/revisions\/4430"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eurolit.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4423"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eurolit.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4422"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eurolit.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4422"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eurolit.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4422"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}