Author: Iain M. Banks
This piece originally appeared in The Observer magazine on August 13, 1989, before being included in the compilation of Banks’s works, State of the Art.
Excerpt from “Piece,” in State of the Art
It was … 1975, I think; have to check my diaries to be sure. I’d finished at Uni that spring and gone off hitchhiking through Europe over the summer. Paris, Bergen, Berlin, Venice, Rabat and Madrid defined the limits of the whirlwind tour. Three months later I was on my way home, and after staying …