Beyond the travel guide: Iperborea’s The Passenger as a supply-driven publishing and translation project

This article examines The Passenger, the book-magazine series developed by the Italian independent publisher Iperborea, which serves as a case study for rethinking the genre of the “travel guide” in contemporary literary circulation. Presented by the publisher as a series of “one-of-a-kind travel guides”, The Passenger combines essays, reportage, literary texts, visual materials and journalistic contributions devoted to cities, countries and geographical regions. Drawing on Ondřej Vimr’s notion of supply-driven translation, the article analyzes how The Passenger is best understood not merely as a translation series, but as a transnational publishing initiative conceived “at the source” in Italian and designed from the outset for international circulation. Particular attention is paid to Iperborea’s agency, to the role of Europa Editions in reaching English-language markets, as well as to subsequent partnerships with Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, and Korean publishers. Based on interviews with editorial staff, we investigate how geographical themes are selected, how chapters are commissioned or sourced from previously published material, how specific issues are chosen for translation, and how translation and revision workflows are organized.