The Savage Landscape
A new nonfiction book from the author of Islands of Abandonment
A lyrical exploration of the world’s wildest, most forbiddingly isolated places—and the humans who have always been there—by an award-winning and critically acclaimed writer.
Wilderness is a powerful, ancient concept that sits at the intersection of landscape, philosophy, and ecology. Over the 20th century, the preservation of wilderness came to serve as a unifying ideal in the global conservation movement, one increasingly contested as time has gone on. Truly ‘pristine,’ ‘untouched’ landscapes are vanishingly rare; early every ‘wilderness’ has been or is actively inhabited by humans. In The Savage Landscape, Cal Flyn traverses some of the the most forbidding and inhospitable wild lands in her search for answers to provocative questions about the nature of wilderness, its value, and its meaning. On the way she meets ascetics in search of theophany in the desert; lonely shepherds fighting off wolves by starlight; bush-pilots, ship’s captains and submariners; wise lamas meditating under lofty mountain peaks.
“One of the most exciting writers around”
—Pico Iyer, author of Aflame
“Fascinating and masterfully written”
—Alice Winn, author of In Memoriam
Cal Flyn is an award-winning writer from the Highlands of Scotland.
She writes long form journalism and literary nonfiction. Her latest book, Islands of Abandonment, has been a Sunday Times bestseller and was shortlisted for numerous awards including the Baillie Gifford Prize for nonfiction. It won her the title of Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year in 2022, the UK and Ireland's most influential prize for young writers, and the E.M. Forster Award from the American Academy of Arts & Letters.