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Commentary on “Barbara”

Ian Inglis

In 2023, I finally got to make a rail journey I’d been thinking about and planning for some time. Using local and regional trains, and stopping for two or three nights at various towns and cities on the way, my partner Annette and I followed the route of the Orient Express as it was originally introduced in 1883: Paris-Strasbourg-Stuttgart-Munich-Salzburg-Vienna-Budapest-Bucharest-Varna-Istanbul. Our return journey followed the route of the Simplon Orient Express, established some thirty years later, after the opening in 1906 of the Simplon tunnel under the Swiss Alps: Istanbul-Belgrade-Zagreb-Ljubljana-Trieste-Venice-Milan-Lausanne-Dijon-Paris.

Each day of our trip (which took eight weeks) was exciting and memorable, but the two cities which stood out for me were Istanbul and Venice – both of which we’d visited before, but which seemed to possess an additional quality by being part of a longer journey. I wanted to write a story that reflected some of the sense of adventure and discovery that we’d experienced. “Barbara” is the result.

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Ian Inglis was born in Stoke-on-Trent and now lives in Newcastle upon Tyne. As Reader in Sociology and Visiting Fellow at Northumbria University, he has written several books and many articles around topics within popular culture. He is also a writer of short fiction, and his stories have appeared in numerous anthologies and literary magazines in the UK and US, including Prole, Popshot, Litro, Sentinel Literary Quarterly, Riptide, East of the Web, The Frogmore Papers, and Bandit Fiction. His debut collection of short stories, The Day Chuck Berry Died, was published by Bridge House in 2023.

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