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Roman Payne

Goodreads Author

Born

in Seattle, Washington, The United States

Website

http://www.romanpayne.com

Twitter

romanpayne

Genre

Literature & Fiction, Travel, Contemporary

Influences

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show... ...more

Member Since

November 2016

URL

https://www.goodreads.com/roman-payne

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Roman Payne (b. 1977) is a novelist and poet currently living in political exile in Africa, in the kingdom of Morocco. Payne coined the famous word “wanderess” and is the author of five novels including, “The Wanderess”; which, since its publication in 2013, has influenced art and cultures all over the world. In the East, the famous Bollywood designer Masaba Gupta used Payne’s novel as the inspiration for her “Wanderess” collection which opened India’s Fashion Week in 2015. In the West, “The Wanderess” has been the inspiration for everything from art, to European films, to pop music in America. The pop star Halsey, who sold-out Madison Square Garden with songs like “Hurricane”—a song based on a quote from Payne’s novel—credits “The Wanderes Roman Payne (b. 1977) is a novelist and poet currently living in political exile in Africa, in the kingdom of Morocco. Payne coined the famous word “wanderess” and is the author of five novels including, “The Wanderess”; which, since its publication in 2013, has influenced art and cultures all over the world. In the East, the famous Bollywood designer Masaba Gupta used Payne’s novel as the inspiration for her “Wanderess” collection which opened India’s Fashion Week in 2015. In the West, “The Wanderess” has been the inspiration for everything from art, to European films, to pop music in America. The pop star Halsey, who sold-out Madison Square Garden with songs like “Hurricane”—a song based on a quote from Payne’s novel—credits “The Wanderess” as one of her greatest inspirations while writing “Badlands,” the debut album that launched her to fame. Halsey chose this Roman Payne quote for her song:

“She was free in her wildness. She was a wanderess, a drop of free water. She belonged to no man and to no city.”

And the following quote by Roman Payne became one of the mantras of billionaire Richard Branson, who named it one of his “top ten favorite quotes about finding happiness”:

“You must give everything to make your life as beautiful as the dreams that dance in your imagination.”

Although Payne’s greatest artistic achievements are his novels, he is better known to the world as a poet. Countless works of art have been based on his poems and quotes. The author said that one of the things he loves most about being a novelist/poet is the numerous photos sent to him from people around the world who have tattooed his poetry on their bodies.

Payne is a controversial figure in that he is currently exiled in Muslim Morocco where he is forbidden to leave kingdom until he is tried for treason by the king (Mohammed VI). Both the US Congress and State Department have failed so far in obtaining the novelist’s release from Morocco. Payne is spending his days of exile in the souks of the ancient Medina of Marrakech.

Roman Payne is known as an adventurer, and the foremost “novelist on wandering.” His novels and poems are the favorites of other wanderers and world travelers.

The forty year-old author spent the first half of his life in America (mostly in Seattle where he was born and raised), while he spent his second 20 years wandering Europe and Africa. He first expatriated to Paris where he lived for fifteen years in the neighborhood of Saint-Germain-des-Prés. The next three years were spent in Athens, Greece; mainland Spain and the Canary Islands. Payne moved to Marrakech in February of 2016 and is currently finishing his sixth novel based on his life there.

Although Payne writes in English, his 15 years living in Paris where he spoke entirely in French, has greatly influenced his work, giving it a unique Latinate quality and inimitable voice. The themes of his quotes and prose explore love and sexuality, travel and the life of a wanderer (or wanderess), and the struggle to live, what he calls, “the poetic life.” He is heavily influenced by Homeric Epic, as well as 18th and 19th Century French and European literature.

Payne is a beloved writer by feminists and women in general because his writing reminds w that they too, like men, only have one life to live as far as we know, thus they too deserve to experience every single adventure that life can offer them. He receives a lot of letters from women writing that they found the courage to wander to the world after reading such quotes by him:

“Never did the world make a queen of a girl who hides in houses and dreams without travelling.”

“I stumbled upon this book when I was a teenager and its words helped to shape my will to be unapologetic, to be unbound by the perimeters of a single place. To write a song like Hurricane. To be like, ‘The Wanderess’” (Pop star, Halsey)
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Roman Payne’s books

Average rating: 4.11 · 622 ratings · 57 reviews · 8 distinct works • Similar authors

	The Wanderess 4.05 avg rating — 315 ratings — published 2013 — 4 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Rooftop Soliloquy 3.81 avg rating — 107 ratings — published 2009 — 3 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Cities & Countries 4.45 avg rating — 51 ratings — published 2007 — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Basement Trains: A 21st Century Poem 4.40 avg rating — 50 ratings — published 2006 — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Crepuscule 4.24 avg rating — 42 ratings — published 2004	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Hope and Despair 4.33 avg rating — 40 ratings — published 2008 — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Love of Europa: Limited Time Edition 4.46 avg rating — 13 ratings — published 2015	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	[(The Basement Trains (a 21st Century Poem))] [Author: Roman Payne] published on (November, 2006) 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

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Roman Payne's Blog

Why Your Goal in Life should be to Write a Book

If thousands of people post and repost quotes by poets, philosophers, and sages that espouse one idea and not its opposite, we can consider that idea to be self-evident. For example: wise men and women defend ‘the individual’ and speak out against ‘following the herd.’

“The greatest thing in the world is to know how to belong to oneself,” writes Montaigne. The wise also encourage bold and courageou Read more of this blog post »

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Published on October 09, 2018 21:45 • Tags: eudaimonia

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Quotes by Roman Payne (?)

“She is free in her wildness, she is a wanderess, a drop of free water. She knows nothing of borders and cares nothing for rules or customs. 'Time' for her isn’t something to fight against. Her life flows clean, with passion, like fresh water.”
― Roman Payne

tags: empowerment, exploration, feminism, roman-payne, strong-women, the-wanderess, wander, wanderer, wanderess, wandering

1923 likes

“She was free in her wildness. She was a wanderess, a drop of free water. She belonged to no man and to no city”
― Roman Payne, The Wanderess

tags: empowerment, exploration, feminism, roman-payne, strong-women, the-wanderess, wander, wanderer, wanderess, wandering

1531 likes

“You must give everything to make your life as beautiful as the dreams that dance in your imagination.”
― Roman Payne

tags: empowerment, exploration, feminism, roman-payne, strong-women, the-wanderess, wander, wanderer, wanderess, wandering

1170 likes

See all Roman Payne's quotes »

Roman’s Quotes

“I fear it is my lot, to bide my days in hunchbacked thought, to find what I forgot.”
― Roman Payne

tags: introspection, memory

33 likes

“She was free in her wildness. She was a wanderess, a drop of free water. She belonged to no man and to no city”
― Roman Payne, The Wanderess

tags: empowerment, exploration, feminism, roman-payne, strong-women, the-wanderess, wander, wanderer, wanderess, wandering

1531 likes

“Oh pleasure, you're indeed a pleasant thing, / Although one must be damned for you no doubt. / I make a resolution every spring / Of reformation, ere the year run out.”
― George Gordon Byron

9 likes

“You must give everything to make your life as beautiful as the dreams that dance in your imagination.”
― Roman Payne

tags: empowerment, exploration, feminism, roman-payne, strong-women, the-wanderess, wander, wanderer, wanderess, wandering

1170 likes

“From all that I saw, and everywhere I wandered, I learned that time cannot be spent. It can only be squandered.”
― Roman Payne

tags: experience, payne, time

66 likes

More of Roman’s quotes…