San Francisco Pilgrimage
Memoir of a Lifelong Love Affair with My City
“An eloquent and timely search for meaning.” —Kirkus Reviews
“Romanov changes her pandemic predicament into emotional and literary gold.”
When her life grinds to a halt,
she sets off on an unlikely pilgrimage.
Like her parents and their parents before them, Tania Romanov Amochaev was an exile, her childhood in a refugee camp ending only when her family eventually made their way to San Francisco’s Russian community.
Nearly seventy years later Tania and her city have endured massive change. Tania has gone from penniless refugee to one of the first women to lead a high-tech company to acclaimed author and world traveler.
When Covid strikes and her life grinds to a halt, Tania sets off on an unlikely pilgrimage. A pilgrimage into a past in which her own identity and that of her city’s are inextricably intertwined. A pilgrimage leading to a profound and personal exploration of place, identity, and race; of the nature of change and the meaning of travel.
Inspired by Phil Cousineau’s classic The Art of Pilgrimage and in the tradition of Gary Kamiya’s Cool Gray City of Love, Tania sets out on a pilgrimage in her own city. Past and present meld as she seeks not only a deeper understanding of both, but to find her way into a future she struggles to envision.
“The value of a soulful journey lies in the capacity it gives to see your own neighborhood as sacred ground. This (is) the path of one such pilgrim as she discovers new meaning in her life.”