Book description
To the Last City is set deep in the Peruvian Andes, where five
ill-prepared travellers - men and women with different values,
temperaments and motives - find themselves trekking through one of the
most exacting and beautiful regions on earth.
It is a journey which may temper or destroy them. They confront not
only their relationships with one another, but also the enigmas of the
country's past, the dangers of its present, and the limitations of
their own minds and bodies. The 'lost city' of their destination is
Vilcabamba, last refuge of the Inca against the Spaniards, subsumed by
jungle for four hundred years.
In this brilliant exploration of the psychological challenges of
travelling, set within the exotic jungle of South America, Colin
Thubron for the first time joins his highly acclaimed talents as a
travel writer with his gifts as a novelist.
Colin Thubron is an acknowledged master of travel writing, and the
winner of many prizes and awards. His first writing was about the Middle
East - Damascus, Lebanon and Cyprus. In 1982 he travelled into the
Soviet Union in an ancient Morris Marina, pursued by the KGB, a journey
he recorded in
Among the Russians
. From these early experiences developed his classic travel books:
Behind the Wall
(winner of the Hawthornden Prize and the Thomas Cook Travel Award),
The Lost Heart of Asia
,
In Siberia
(Prix Bouvier) and
Shadow of the Silk Road
(all available in Vintage). In 2010 Colin Thubron became President of
the Royal Society of Literature.
