I enjoy it immensely when travelling friends share their stories with me. Sometimes, it almost feels as if I went with them – particularly if the friend’s story is followed up by a great novel about the travel destination. This was the case after Amélia Polonia’s return from a research trip to the Sundarbans. Her photos showed a remote and beautiful world, where people try to preserve the precious ecosystem that is their home. Images of lush greenery and beautiful sunsets were followed by – a book! Amélia kindly lent me Amitav Ghosh’s The Hungry Tide, suggesting that I might want to read about this enchanted part of India. Little did I know that a translator was one of the main characters in this novel. And that it would make me think about dreamers and realists. And go-betweens. The power of language – albeit unspoken at times – is a recurrent theme in the novel. Thinking that I almost parted with it after reading the first few pages, because I felt the perspective was too ‚male‘ and a little bit one-dimensional when describing Piya and her research, I’m reall glad I persevered, because I realised that this description was exactly right to describe Piya’s environment at the beginning of the story. Everything began to grow once she entered the realm of her research and found the right people to pursue her passion. Fokir, who helps her in this pursuit, is a very strong character that made me think about fitting in and caring for oneself and for others. All in all, lots of food for thought while exposed to the forces of nature – albeit in the four walls of my Berlin flat.