Nicolas Bouvier's "The Way of the World" - Words Without Borders
Nicolas Bouvier’s “The Way of the World” New York Review Books, 2009 Two Swiss men are at the Iranian border. The year is 1953, just a few months prior to the CIA-sponsored coup. The night is dark. A customs officer emerges from his pavilion and shines his acetylene lamp on the men: “I am sorry my friends,” he says, “you must have a soldier to escort you as far as Maku.” The officer then produces “a mongoloid midget in puttees . . . as though hed plucked him out of his slipper.�...
Source: wordswithoutborders.org