Paris : The Passenger

The Passenger collects the best new writing, photography, and reportage from around the world. Its aim: to break down barriers and introduce the essence of a place. Packed with essays and investigative journalism, original photography and illustrations, charts, and unusual facts and observations, each volume offers a unique insight into a different culture, and how history has shaped it into what it is today. Brimming with intricate research and enduring wonder, The Passenger is a love-letter to global travel.

In this volume, Tash Aw, James McAuley, Samar Yazbek, and other French writers explore the second largest city in Europe. The radiance of the "city of lights" can be blinding even for tourists: the clash with the real city, so different from the one depicted in films and books, results in some developing the so-called "Paris syndrome." The cracks in the postcard image seem to multiply—terrorist attacks, the yellow vest demonstrations, riots in the suburbs, Notre-Dame in flames, record heatwaves. Meanwhile, soaring living costs are forcing many Parisians to leave.

Yet these are not just a series of unfortunate events. They are phenomena that all metropolises must face: increasing population density, climate change, immigration, the repercussions of globalization and geopolitics. And in Paris today, the mood is not one of defeat but of renewal. From ongoing environmental and urbanistic transformation to the children of immigrants who take to the streets for the right to feel French, and the women determined to break the sexism and stereotypes that dominate the fashion industry—is there anyone who seriously thinks they can teach Parisians how to stage a revolution?