Leaving a familiar place can change the way you see it when you return. This possibility appears in the work of Anne Carson, winner of the 2026 Nobel Prize in Literaturewhose writing mixes poetry, essays and translation. Among his reflections on the trip there is one that proposes paying as much attention to the return as to the departure.
The idea comes from Plainwaterin a passage related to the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela. There, the narrator prepares a backpack with socks, a canteen, pencils and three empty notebooks. He decides to dispense with maps and proposes a rule for the trip, included in the headline in a Spanish translation.
The way back is also part of the journey
The phrase admits a literal reading. Returning for another route allows you to discover places that were left out on the way. But, within a story about pilgrimage, it can also be read as an invitation to review what one took for granted.
In this context, traveling means taking distance from everyday life. Questions that seemed resolved can take on another meaning far from home. The return does not erase what was experienced during the journey, even if the final destination is the same place from which one left.
Hence the reflection also circulates in versions that talk about coming back different. This formulation emphasizes the possibility of personal change, although the original preserves the concrete image of look for a new path.
A reflection linked to the Camino de Santiago
The reference to Compostela gives these words a recognizable setting. In the passage, the narrator sets out with questions about her life and notebooks yet to be written. The trip appears as an open experience, the result of which you do not know before starting.
The awarding of the Nobel Prize offers an opportunity to approach this text beyond the phrase that circulates on the Internet. Read together with the rest of the story, Carson’s rule leaves a question for the traveler returning home: what has he seen along the way that allows him to look at what he already knew in a different way.