Millay Hyatt embarks on a journey into the unknown: she sets off on foot from Berlin heading east to explore the boundaries between capital city and province, strangers and friends, history and the present. Without a smartphone, but with Fontane in her backpack, she lets herself be recommended from door to door – from left-wing housing projects to city-escape shared apartments to retired mayors and cigarette sellers at the Polish market. She stands in front of closed farm shops and the open arms of her hosts, who are rarely confirmed more than a day in advance, each day an improvisation and an experiment. She runs through sun-drenched forests, gets lost in deserted landscapes, is rescued by a forestry worker, spends the night in medieval towers, and marvels at the fractures and beauties of the Brandenburg and West Pomeranian provinces.
How Many Days Must I Walk is a literary travel essay about hospitality and being a stranger, about city and country, borders and transitions. Millay Hyatt weaves personal experiences with philosophical reflections, history with current conflicts. The result is a multi-layered book about the joy of being welcomed by strangers – and an invitation to embark on an adventure right outside your own front door.
“Millay Hyatt is a sensitive observer. She captures the unseen, the unfamiliar, the seductively different.” – Tagesspiegel
Literary essay
Millay Hyatt, born in 1973 in Dallas/Texas, USA, has a doctorate in philosophy and lives as a freelance author and translator in Berlin. Her essays and stories have been published in various media. In 2020 and 2021 she received scholarships from the Berlin Senate. She is currently performing in Lola Arias' play Mother Tongue at the Gorki Theater in Berlin. Previously published by Matthes & Seitz Berlin: Days on the Night Train (2024), which will be published in English translation by Haus Publishing.
