Could a train ride become a story before it reaches its destination? With Writers on the Rails, Belmond invites six celebrated authors to turn the Venice Simplon-Orient-Express into a moving literary salon.
Could a train ride become a story before it reaches its destination? With Writers on the Rails, Belmond invites six celebrated authors to turn the Venice Simplon-Orient-Express into a moving literary salon.
April 15, 2026
Belmond’s Venice Simplon-Orient-Express has always understood that travel is partly about movement and partly about mythology. Now, the legendary train is making that idea literal with Writers on the Rails, an exclusive literary collection of short stories created by six internationally recognised authors after journeys aboard the train. The anthology has been available to guests travelling on the Venice Simplon-Orient-Express since April 15, 2026, adding a quieter, more contemplative ritual to one of the most iconic luxury train journeys Europe can offer.
The premise is elegant because it refuses speed. At a time when travel is often compressed into content, check-ins and scrolling itineraries, Belmond has placed a book back into the hands of its passengers. The writers were invited to answer one simple question: what story might this experience awaken? The result is not a guidebook, but a literary companion, designed to be discovered in moments of calm as European landscapes unfold beyond the windows.
The inaugural list carries serious contemporary weight. Elizabeth Day, Ottessa Moshfegh, George the Poet, Bernardine Evaristo, Rebecca F. Kuang and David Nicholls each bring a different literary temperament to the train. Together, they turn the Venice Simplon-Orient-Express into more than a restored Art Deco fantasy. It becomes a moving salon, where fiction absorbs the sound of the rails, the rituals of dining cars and the intimacy of watching cities and countryside pass in cinematic silence.
That choice also fits Belmond’s wider positioning around slow luxury. The Venice Simplon-Orient-Express connects storied European destinations including Paris and Venice, with extended routes to Vienna, Prague and Istanbul.
On board, the experience already carries the material language of old-world luxury: Historic Cabins, Suites, Grand Suites and L’Observatoire, a private carriage designed with artist JR. Grand Suites offer additional space, private bathrooms and 24-hour butler service, while the train’s broader atmosphere remains rooted in craftsmanship, ceremony and the golden age of travel.
With Writers on the Rails, Belmond's Venice Simplon-Orient-Express is not simply adding culture as decoration. It is using literature to slow the passenger down. The journey becomes something to read, remember and re-enter long after arrival.
