THE BLUE LANTERN – Stories from the Road

The world is vast, round, and brilliantly blue – and Dennis Gastmann has experienced it all. Sometimes in glimpses, sometimes in full technicolor, and sometimes like a fever dream, from Andalusia to Allahabad, Sydney to Swakopmund, and the thousand lights of Manhattan to Madurai, the Tamil city of temples and sorcerers. In this book, the seasoned reporter shares his adventures around the world.

He travels with a gold prospector through the Australian desert, dances with Finland's most famous tango instructor, and philosophizes on Taiwan with a Chinese dissident about the price of freedom. In India, he kneels before the leader of the Hijra, the third gender, and in California, he rolls through a "drive-in funeral". In southern Spain, he accompanies the hooded debt collectors of the "Monastery of Cashiers" on their not-so-religious mission.

Gastmann visits a "patriotic lesson" at Putin's former elementary school, where children learn to handle Kalashnikovs, and finds himself in the grips of the Russian secret service. Vivid, touching, and sometimes outlandish stories and experiences – encircling that globe the good Lord hung in the night sky for us humans: the blue lantern.