From the farthest reaches of the world, I see the deepest parts of my heart.

It is when all kinds of souls encounter that we see the world.

The “Castalia” is the retreats for the magic practice in Hesse's famous book "The Glass Ball Game” and a utopian spiritual kingdom. In the human world of the twenty-first century, there are many mysterious organisations running the similar retreats in name of literature. These secret houses are located in the unknown corners of most countries all over the world, where writers can work, meditate, meet different souls or simply observe themselves. 

This is a unique book, an anecdotal narrative of the writer Sun Wei's travels around Europe. For more than ten years Sun Wei has been invited to participate in literary exchange residency programmes in various countries, mainly in Europe, during which she has observed the unique lifestyles and values of the inhabitants, as well as the historical evolution and current ecology of literature and art in these countries. During the endless trip, she wrote down these half-fiction legends from all the interesting souls in Europe.

She has met a cat called 'Oscar Wilde', lived in a town of 300 inhabitants, attended a special funeral and had an unexpected medical experience in Germany, a country renowned for its rigour. ......

Printed in full colour, wire-bound and illustrated with 50 photographs.