Travels in the Land of Hunger

Book excerpt: In the spring of 2004 - after living in Tokyo, Japan for over three years pursuing a career as a freelance musician - science fiction and fantasy author Domenico Italo Composto-Hart set off on a half-year backpacking journey through the lands of East and Southeast Asia, Siberia, Central Russia, the Baltic states, the Nordic countries, and Eastern and Western Europe. Traveling by foot, bus, train, and boat - and seeing the world through the analytical lens of anthropology, archaeology, and economics - Domenico documents, researches, and deciphers the developing nations he encounters as they rise through the turbulence of unregulated Western capitalism and globalization. Travels in the Land of Hunger is the author's reflective account of the dark, long-lasting impact of Western colonialism and imperialism, the Vietnam War, the Khmer Rouge regime, the 1997 Asian financial crisis, and the sex tourism and sex trafficking industries in Southeast and East Asia. It is also a narrative of finding exotic beauty, inspiration, inner strength, and unexpected love.