To a Mountain in Tibet - Hardcover

Thubron, Colin

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 006176826X ISBN 13: 9780061768262

Publisher: Harper, 2011

Synopsis

“Colin Thubron is the intrepid, resourceful and immensely talented writer who has made a career out of going to out of the way places and then writing brilliantly about them.”—Jonathan Yardley, Washington Post Book World 

“Thanks to Thubron, we encounter a world which, in its beauty and awe, exceeds our imagination." —Ryszard Kapuscinski, author of Shah of Shahs and Imperium 

New York Times bestselling author Colin Thubron returns with a moving, intimate, and exquisitely crafted travel memoir recounting his pilgrimage to the Hindu and Buddhist holy mountain of Kailas—whose peak represents the most sacred place on Earth to roughly a quarter the global population. With echoes of Peter Matthiessen’s The Snow Leopard, Peter Hessler’s Country Driving, and Paul Theoroux’s Ghost Train to the Eastern Star, Thubron’s follow up to his bestselling Shadow of the Silk Road will illuminate, interest, and inspire anyone interested in traveling the world or journeying into the soul.

About this title

About the Author

Colin Thubron is an acclaimed travel writer and novelist. His first books were about the Middle East – Damascus, Lebanon and Cyprus. In 1982 he travelled by car into the Soviet Union, a journey he described in Among the Russians. From these early experiences developed his classic travel books: Behind the Wall: A Journey through China (winner of the Hawthornden Prize and the Thomas Cook Travel Award), The Lost Heart of Asia, In Siberia (Prix Bouvier), Shadow of the Silk Road and To a Mountain in Tibet.

Among other honors, Colin Thubron has received the Ness award of the Royal Geographical Society and the Livingstone Memorial Medal of the Royal Society for Asian Affairs. In 2007 he was made CBE. He was elected President of the Royal Society of Literature from 2010 to 2017, and named an RSL Companion of Literature in 2020.

From the Back Cover

This is the account of a journey to the holiest mountain on earth, the solitary peak of Kailas in Tibet, sacred to one-fifth of humankind. To both Buddhists and Hindus it is the mystic heart of the world and an ancient site of pilgrimage. It has never been climbed. Even today, under Chinese domination, the people of four religions circle the mountain in devotion to different gods.

Colin Thubron reached it by foot along the Karnali River, the highest source of the Ganges. His journey is an entry into the culture of today's Tibet, and a pilgrimage in the wake his mother's death and the loss of his family. He undertakes it in order to mark the event, to leave a sign of their passage. He also explores his own need for solitude, which has shaped his career as a writer—one who travels to places beyond his own history and culture, writing about them and about the journey. To a Mountain in Tibet is at once a powerful travelogue, a fascinated encounter with alien faith, and an intimate personal voyage.

It is a haunting and beautiful book, a rare mix of discovery and loss. In its evocation of landscape and variety of exotic peoples, of mythic and spiritual traditions foreign to our own, it is a spectacular achievement from our greatest living travel writer, an artist of formidable literary gifts, uncanny intuition, and wondrous insight.

Reviews

Starred Review. œThe mountain path is the road of the dead,� writes Thubron (Shadow of the Silk Road) in this engrossing and affecting travel memoir that transcends the mere physical journey. In the wake of his mother™s death, Thubron sets off to Mount Kailas in Tibet, a peak sacred to one-fifth of the world™s population and the source of four of India™s great rivers. Kailas has never been climbed: the slopes are important to Tibetan Buddhists who say the mountain™s guardian is Demchog (a tantric variant of Shiva). Along with two guides, Thubron embarks on a pilgrimage that begins in Nepal and crosses into Tibet, recounting not only his arduous journey but also the political and cultural history of Tibet and the West™s continued fascination with its mysticism. Along the way, he observes pilgrims of various religions converging on Kailas and the myriad monasteries, most of which were destroyed during the Cultural Revolution and rebuilt decades later. It is the poignant evocations of his mother and sister (who died at 21), interwoven with his profound respect for the Tibetan culture and landscape that make Thubron™s memoir an utterly moving read. (Mar.)
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*Starred Review* Kailas is a sacred, snow-capped mountain of the Himalayas in a remote area of western Tibet. There have been no recorded attempts to climb it, in deference to Buddhist, Hindu, B�n, and Jainist beliefs. Award-winning British travel writer and novelist Thubron (Shadow of the Silk Road, 2007) traveled along the Karnali River (a tributary of the Ganges) by foot with only a guide, a cook, and a horse man on a long and often treacherous trek to visit this mystical peak, considered holy by one-fifth of humankind. The journey is the reward, for both writer and reader, in this rich, beautiful account of the landscape, people, culture, and politics of Tibet. Much more than a travel guide or history lesson, this engrossing and gorgeously written book is also a stirring memoir tinged with the author�s own grief, reflecting on the joys and losses he�s experienced. Thubron is the steward of his father�s legacy and keeper of his mother�s memories, sharing familial recollections on a pilgrimage toward one of nature�s precious jewels, and his own parentless future. --Chris Keech

Edition details

• Publisher: Harper
• Publication date: 2011
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 006176826X
• ISBN 13: 9780061768262
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 240