André Brugiroux
Encyclopedia
André Antoine Brugiroux (born 11 November 1937) is a French
travel
ler and author
who, between 1955 and 2005, visited every country and territory in the world, the last being Mustang
. He was named "greatest living traveller on earth" in 2007 in Jorge Sánchez's list of Viajeros notables contemporaneous (Notable Contemporary Travellers). He has made a documentary film of his first, 18-year trip and has devoted his life to spreading the message of the Bahá’í Faith worldwide.
, Val-de-Marne
, to a railwayman father and an accountant mother. He spent his childhood in Brunoy
, Seine-et-Oise
and attended the Mardelles school in Brunoy and then the Saint-Augustin collège (secondary school) in Montgeron
. Lack of work on the family farm in Langeac, Haute-Loire
had led his father to move to the Paris region
.
It was not his father who encouraged him to travel, however, but rather his mother, who had done some touring before getting married. She unwittingly gave him his taste for travel and provided him with the key to developing his future resourcefulness by enrolling him as a scout
. The name he received as a scout was incredibly apt: "fouine babillarde" (in French), or "chattering beech marten" (a beech marten is a cunning animal and chattering means "talkative")
Growing up in wartime made such an impression on him from his early childhood that his decision to travel the world was unconsciously inspired by the desire to find out whether peace might one day be possible.
The title of both his film and his first book, La Terre n’est qu’un seul pays (literally: "The Earth is but one country", published in English as One People, One Planet), is the conclusion to which his first journey around the world brought him, a journey which lasted 18 years before he returned home (1955 to 1973), and during which he hitchhiked 400000 km (248,549.1 mi), hitchhiking
through 135 countries on every continent.
Brugiroux left home in 1955, at the age of 17, with a diploma from the École hôtelière de Paris and ten francs in his pocket, working first for seven years in Europe
to learn various foreign languages by doing part-time jobs. Between his time in Spain
and West Germany
he did his military service in the Congo
(1958 and 1959).
Then, after working as a translator
in Canada
for three years (from 1965 to 1967) to save up the funds, he managed to visit the whole planet over six years without working. He travelled only by hitchhiking (including by plane, ship and yacht), spending no more than an average of one dollar a day.
During his travels he was imprisoned seven times, almost killed on several occasions, deported, robbed, etc. He stayed with Dr. Schweitzer
at his hospital in Lambaréné
(Gabon
) and the hippie
s in San Francisco
, with head-hunters in Borneo
and Buddhist monks
in Bangkok
; he studied Yoga at an ashram
in India
and worked on a kibbutz
in Israel
; he also saw, among other things, the gem-smuggling business in Ceylon
(now Sri Lanka) and refugee
camps
in Cambodia
.
In the course of his journey, he discovered and accepted an idea extolled in the nineteenth century by a Persian noble named Bahá’u’lláh: "The Earth is but one country." He returned home with a new vision of history.
After publishing his first book, producing a documentary film of his first trip and recovering his health, Brugiroux hit the road again in order not only to visit the countries he had missed the first time round and their peoples but to share the Bahá'í principles and teachings he had learnt. He travelled abroad from his base in France continuously for the next 30 years, spending six to eight months away each year and combining lectures with visiting new places. He has also travelled all over France.
In 1984 he married Rinia Van Kanten, a sociologist from Suriname
whom he had met in Cayenne
(French Guiana
). They have a daughter named Natascha.
In 2005, Brugiroux completed his dream of seeing the whole world by watching polar bears
in the bay at Churchill
, Manitoba
(Canada
).
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
travel
Travel
Travel is the movement of people or objects between relatively distant geographical locations. 'Travel' can also include relatively short stays between successive movements.-Etymology:...
ler and author
Author
An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...
who, between 1955 and 2005, visited every country and territory in the world, the last being Mustang
Mustang (kingdom)
Mustang is the former Kingdom of Lo and now part of Nepal, in the north-central part of that country, bordering the People's Republic of China on the Tibetan plateau between the Nepalese provinces of Dolpo and Manang...
. He was named "greatest living traveller on earth" in 2007 in Jorge Sánchez's list of Viajeros notables contemporaneous (Notable Contemporary Travellers). He has made a documentary film of his first, 18-year trip and has devoted his life to spreading the message of the Bahá’í Faith worldwide.
Biography
Brugiroux was born in Villeneuve-Saint-GeorgesVilleneuve-Saint-Georges
Villeneuve-Saint-Georges is a commune in the southeastern suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the center of Paris.-Transport:Villeneuve-Saint-Georges is served by two stations on Paris RER line D: Villeneuve – Triage and Villeneuve-Saint-Georges.-Demography:-International...
, Val-de-Marne
Val-de-Marne
Val-de-Marne is a French department, named after the Marne River, located in the Île-de-France region. The department is situated to the southeast of the city of Paris.- Geography :...
, to a railwayman father and an accountant mother. He spent his childhood in Brunoy
Brunoy
Brunoy is a commune in the south-eastern suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the center of Paris.Inhabitants of Brunoy are known as Brunoyens....
, Seine-et-Oise
Seine-et-Oise
Seine-et-Oise was a département of France encompassing the western, northern, and southern parts of the metropolitan area of Paris. Its préfecture was Versailles and its official number was 78. Seine-et-Oise was abolished in 1968....
and attended the Mardelles school in Brunoy and then the Saint-Augustin collège (secondary school) in Montgeron
Montgeron
Montgeron is a commune in the southeastern suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the center of Paris.Inhabitants of Montgeron are known as Montgeronnais.-Transport:Montgeron is served by Montgeron – Crosne station on Paris RER line D....
. Lack of work on the family farm in Langeac, Haute-Loire
Haute-Loire
Haute-Loire is a department in south-central France named after the Loire River.-History:Haute-Loire is one of the original 83 departments created during the French Revolution on 4 March 1790...
had led his father to move to the Paris region
Île-de-France (région)
Île-de-France is the wealthiest and most populated of the twenty-two administrative regions of France, composed mostly of the Paris metropolitan area....
.
It was not his father who encouraged him to travel, however, but rather his mother, who had done some touring before getting married. She unwittingly gave him his taste for travel and provided him with the key to developing his future resourcefulness by enrolling him as a scout
Scouting
Scouting, also known as the Scout Movement, is a worldwide youth movement with the stated aim of supporting young people in their physical, mental and spiritual development, that they may play constructive roles in society....
. The name he received as a scout was incredibly apt: "fouine babillarde" (in French), or "chattering beech marten" (a beech marten is a cunning animal and chattering means "talkative")
Growing up in wartime made such an impression on him from his early childhood that his decision to travel the world was unconsciously inspired by the desire to find out whether peace might one day be possible.
The title of both his film and his first book, La Terre n’est qu’un seul pays (literally: "The Earth is but one country", published in English as One People, One Planet), is the conclusion to which his first journey around the world brought him, a journey which lasted 18 years before he returned home (1955 to 1973), and during which he hitchhiked 400000 km (248,549.1 mi), hitchhiking
Hitchhiking
Hitchhiking is a means of transportation that is gained by asking people, usually strangers, for a ride in their automobile or other road vehicle to travel a distance that may either be short or long...
through 135 countries on every continent.
Brugiroux left home in 1955, at the age of 17, with a diploma from the École hôtelière de Paris and ten francs in his pocket, working first for seven years in Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
to learn various foreign languages by doing part-time jobs. Between his time in Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
and West Germany
West Germany
West Germany is the common English, but not official, name for the Federal Republic of Germany or FRG in the period between its creation in May 1949 to German reunification on 3 October 1990....
he did his military service in the Congo
French Congo
The French Congo was a French colony which at one time comprised the present-day area of the Republic of the Congo, Gabon, and the Central African Republic...
(1958 and 1959).
Then, after working as a translator
Translation
Translation is the communication of the meaning of a source-language text by means of an equivalent target-language text. Whereas interpreting undoubtedly antedates writing, translation began only after the appearance of written literature; there exist partial translations of the Sumerian Epic of...
in Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
for three years (from 1965 to 1967) to save up the funds, he managed to visit the whole planet over six years without working. He travelled only by hitchhiking (including by plane, ship and yacht), spending no more than an average of one dollar a day.
During his travels he was imprisoned seven times, almost killed on several occasions, deported, robbed, etc. He stayed with Dr. Schweitzer
Albert Schweitzer
Albert Schweitzer OM was a German theologian, organist, philosopher, physician, and medical missionary. He was born in Kaysersberg in the province of Alsace-Lorraine, at that time part of the German Empire...
at his hospital in Lambaréné
Lambaréné
Lambaréné is the capital of the political district Moyen-Ogooué in Gabon. The city counts 24,000 inhabitants and is located 75 kilometres south of the equator....
(Gabon
Gabon
Gabon , officially the Gabonese Republic is a state in west central Africa sharing borders with Equatorial Guinea to the northwest, Cameroon to the north, and with the Republic of the Congo curving around the east and south. The Gulf of Guinea, an arm of the Atlantic Ocean is to the west...
) and the hippie
Hippie
The hippie subculture was originally a youth movement that arose in the United States during the mid-1960s and spread to other countries around the world. The etymology of the term 'hippie' is from hipster, and was initially used to describe beatniks who had moved into San Francisco's...
s in San Francisco
San Francisco, California
San Francisco , officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7.15 million people which includes San Jose and Oakland...
, with head-hunters in Borneo
Borneo
Borneo is the third largest island in the world and is located north of Java Island, Indonesia, at the geographic centre of Maritime Southeast Asia....
and Buddhist monks
Bhikkhu
A Bhikkhu or Bhikṣu is an ordained male Buddhist monastic. A female monastic is called a Bhikkhuni Nepali: ). The life of Bhikkhus and Bhikkhunis is governed by a set of rules called the patimokkha within the vinaya's framework of monastic discipline...
in Bangkok
Bangkok
Bangkok is the capital and largest urban area city in Thailand. It is known in Thai as Krung Thep Maha Nakhon or simply Krung Thep , meaning "city of angels." The full name of Bangkok is Krung Thep Mahanakhon Amon Rattanakosin Mahintharayutthaya Mahadilok Phop Noppharat Ratchathani Burirom...
; he studied Yoga at an ashram
Ashram
Traditionally, an ashram is a spiritual hermitage. Additionally, today the term ashram often denotes a locus of Indian cultural activity such as yoga, music study or religious instruction, the moral equivalent of a studio or dojo....
in India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
and worked on a kibbutz
Kibbutz
A kibbutz is a collective community in Israel that was traditionally based on agriculture. Today, farming has been partly supplanted by other economic branches, including industrial plants and high-tech enterprises. Kibbutzim began as utopian communities, a combination of socialism and Zionism...
in Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
; he also saw, among other things, the gem-smuggling business in Ceylon
Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka is a country off the southern coast of the Indian subcontinent. Known until 1972 as Ceylon , Sri Lanka is an island surrounded by the Indian Ocean, the Gulf of Mannar and the Palk Strait, and lies in the vicinity of India and the...
(now Sri Lanka) and refugee
Refugee
A refugee is a person who outside her country of origin or habitual residence because she has suffered persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or because she is a member of a persecuted 'social group'. Such a person may be referred to as an 'asylum seeker' until...
camps
Refugee camp
A refugee camp is a temporary settlement built to receive refugees. Hundreds of thousands of people may live in any one single camp. Usually they are built and run by a government, the United Nations, or international organizations, or NGOs.Refugee camps are generally set up in an impromptu...
in Cambodia
Cambodia
Cambodia , officially known as the Kingdom of Cambodia, is a country located in the southern portion of the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia...
.
In the course of his journey, he discovered and accepted an idea extolled in the nineteenth century by a Persian noble named Bahá’u’lláh: "The Earth is but one country." He returned home with a new vision of history.
After publishing his first book, producing a documentary film of his first trip and recovering his health, Brugiroux hit the road again in order not only to visit the countries he had missed the first time round and their peoples but to share the Bahá'í principles and teachings he had learnt. He travelled abroad from his base in France continuously for the next 30 years, spending six to eight months away each year and combining lectures with visiting new places. He has also travelled all over France.
In 1984 he married Rinia Van Kanten, a sociologist from Suriname
Suriname
Suriname , officially the Republic of Suriname , is a country in northern South America. It borders French Guiana to the east, Guyana to the west, Brazil to the south, and on the north by the Atlantic Ocean. Suriname was a former colony of the British and of the Dutch, and was previously known as...
whom he had met in Cayenne
Cayenne
Cayenne is the capital of French Guiana, an overseas region and department of France located in South America. The city stands on a former island at the mouth of the Cayenne River on the Atlantic coast. The city's motto is "Ferit Aurum Industria" which means "Work brings wealth"...
(French Guiana
French Guiana
French Guiana is an overseas region of France, consisting of a single overseas department located on the northern Atlantic coast of South America. It has borders with two nations, Brazil to the east and south, and Suriname to the west...
). They have a daughter named Natascha.
In 2005, Brugiroux completed his dream of seeing the whole world by watching polar bears
Polar Bear
The polar bear is a bear native largely within the Arctic Circle encompassing the Arctic Ocean, its surrounding seas and surrounding land masses. It is the world's largest land carnivore and also the largest bear, together with the omnivorous Kodiak Bear, which is approximately the same size...
in the bay at Churchill
Churchill, Manitoba
Churchill is a town on the shore of Hudson Bay in Manitoba, Canada. It is most famous for the many polar bears that move toward the shore from inland in the autumn, leading to the nickname "Polar Bear Capital of the World" that has helped its growing tourism industry.-History:A variety of nomadic...
, Manitoba
Manitoba
Manitoba is a Canadian prairie province with an area of . The province has over 110,000 lakes and has a largely continental climate because of its flat topography. Agriculture, mostly concentrated in the fertile southern and western parts of the province, is vital to the province's economy; other...
(Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
).
Books
In French unless stated:- La terre n’est qu’un seul pays (The Earth is but one country), Robert Laffont, 1975, "Vécu" collection; republished in 2007 by Géorama éditions.
- Published in English as One People, One Planet (Oneworld, Oxford, 1991) and in Spanish as La tierra es un solo país (Plaza y Janes, S.A., 1978)
- La route et ses chemins (The road and its pathways), Robert Laffont, 1978 ; later republished as La route, Éditions Séguier, 1986
- Le prisonnier de Saint-Jean-d’Acre (The Prisoner of Acre), Librairie Les Insomniaques, 1978; republished in 2007 by Être et Connaître éditions. Won the Prix Saint-Exupéry in 1983.
- Les chemins de la paix (Pathways to Peace), Éditions Séguier, 1990
- Les maquisards de Bahá, unpublished
- Bloc-notes d’un enseignant itinérant (Notes of a Travelling Teacher), Librairie bahá’íe, 2002
- Une vie sur la route (A life on the road), Géorama éditions, 2006
- Victor Hugo, porte-parole de Bahá’u’lláh (Victor Hugo—spokesman for Bahá’u’lláh), in progress
Film
- La Terre n’est qu’un seul pays/One People, One Planet – a 400,000 km hitchhike around the globe visiting 135 countries and world civilization. This film is a documentary filmed at the time, produced and narrated by the author. Available on DVD (in French and English) since 2005.
External links
- André Brugiroux - official Web site
- The Bahá'ís, the official presence of the Bahá'í International Community on the Web