Roma

‘Time’, wrote the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius, ‘is a river of passing events, and strong is its current; no sooner is a thing brought to sight than it is swept by and another takes its place, and this too will be swept away.’ In Roma, Bernard Saint follows the shade of Marcus Aurelius through the elastic time zones of the Eternal City. There they encounter Gregory Corso, Chet Baker, Jane Birkin and Serge Gainsbourg; they walk down the Catwalk, watch Reality TV and guide a rock-star into rehab. Like Cavafy’s Alexandria, Grass’s Danzig, Borges’ Buenos Aires – and Fellini’s Roma – this is a book about a city where time never walks in a straight narrative line. It is a book about imagination and history, accidents and architecture, faces and frescoes; a river where past, present, and future meet.