Lost Cosmonaut

Lost Cosmonaut looks like my kind of travel literature.

In a lengthy email, Kalder introduced himself as the author of a forthcoming "anti-travel" book in which he explores four of Russia’s most mysterious ethnic republics. As part of the research for a subsequent book, he explained, he was in the process of applying for a visa for another ex-Soviet republic which is notoriously wary about admitting foreigners. Acting as a barrier to his application, it seemed, was a mention of his real name (he normally writes under a pseudonym) on Guardian Unlimited Books, in a feature on books to look out for in the next year. His "unusual request" was that we help him disappear by removing his name from the article until after his visa was granted. Normally, of course, we wouldn’t dream of tweaking the site to oblige an author, but these were exceptional circumstances.

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