Sylvain Tesson – författare

Sylvain Tesson, found a radical solution to his need for freedom, one as ancient as the experiences of the hermits of old Russia: he decided to lock himself alone in a cabin in the middle taiga, on the shores of Baikal, for six months. Noting carefully his impressions of the silence, Sylvain Tesson shares with us an extraordinary experience.

In Consolations of the Forest, Sylvain Tesson explains how he found a radical solution to his need for freedom, one as ancient as the experiences of the hermits of old Russia: he decided to lock himself alone in a cabin in the middle taiga, on the shores of Baikal, for six months. From February to July 2010, he lived in silence, solitude, and cold. His cabin, built by Soviet geologists in the Brezhnev years, is a cube of logs three meters by three meters, heated by a cast iron skillet, six-day walk from the nearest village and hundreds of miles of track. To live isolated from the world while retaining one's sanity requires a routine, Tesson discovered. In the morning, he would read, write, smoke, or draw, and then devoted hours to cutting the wood, shoveling snow, and fishing. Emotionally, these months proved a challenge, and the loneliness was crippling. Tesson found in paper a valuable confidant, the notebook, a polite companion. Noting carefully, almost daily, his impressions of the silence, his struggles to survive in a hostile nature, his despair, his doubts, but also its moments of ecstasy, inner peace and harmony with nature, Sylvain Tesson shares with us an extraordinary experience.Writer, journalist and traveler, Sylvain Tesson was born in 1972. After a world tour by bicycle, he developed a passion for Central Asia, and has travelled tirelessly since 1997. He came to prominence in 2004 with a remarkable travelogue, Axis of Wolf (Robert Laffont). Editions Gallimard have already published his A Life of a Mouthful (2009) and, with Thomas Goisque and Bertrand de Miollis, High Voltage (2009). In 2009 he won the Prix Goncourt for A Life of a Mouthful, and in 2011 won the Prix Médicis for non-fiction for Consolations of the Forest: Alone in Siberia.

Winner of the Prix Renaudot 2019A New York Times Best Book of 2021‘Extraordinarily beautiful… a long last loving glance at the planet.’ Carl Safina, author of Becoming WildThe snow leopard stalks the frozen expanse of the Tibetan plateau – 4,500 metres above sea level. Fierce, silent, near invisible, she is a perfectly adapted predator.Escaping Paris’s urban sprawl, the renowned French adventurer Sylvain Tesson journeys into the frozen wilderness in search of these most elusive creatures.Tightly focused and tautly written, Tesson offers a dazzling account of a singular journey, a meditation on the ruthlessness of the natural world, a plea for ecological sanity and a reflection on the lost art of patience.***‘One of the best books of the year.’ Financial Times‘A transcendent travel writer.’ Countryfile, Best Books of 2021‘A poetic eulogy to the planet.’ Big Issue

Winner of the Prix Renaudot 2019A New York Times Best Book of 2021‘Extraordinarily beautiful… a long last loving glance at the planet.’ Carl Safina, author of Becoming WildThe snow leopard stalks the frozen expanse of the Tibetan plateau – 4,500 metres above sea level. Fierce, silent, near invisible, she is a perfectly adapted predator.Escaping Paris’s urban sprawl, the renowned French adventurer Sylvain Tesson journeys into the frozen wilderness in search of these most elusive creatures.Tightly focused and tautly written, Tesson offers a dazzling account of a singular journey, a meditation on the ruthlessness of the natural world, a plea for ecological sanity and a reflection on the lost art of patience.***‘One of the best books of the year.’ Financial Times‘A transcendent travel writer.’ Countryfile, Best Books of 2021‘A poetic eulogy to the planet.’ Big Issue

When Sylvain Tesson left the colourful yellow houses of the French Riviera for a ski trek across the Alps with his friend, a high-altitude mountain guide, he didn't know what exactly awaited him. The trek would turn into an extraordinary adventure.Over the course of four years they ascended high into the Alps in winter, following the curve of the mountains from the Mediterranean to the Adriatic, immersing themselves in a strange white world made entirely of snow. In the bitter cold and overlooked by an empty sky, only the effort of moving forward, one difficult stride at a time, separated the days from one another. And as they trudged onwards, the never-ending white of the high Alps cancelled out all feelings – hope, fear, memory and regret.What did he stand to gain by inflicting this ordeal on himself? This was no ordinary mountain trek: it was a search for communion with the magic substance of the White.Also available as an audiobook.

When Sylvain Tesson left the colourful yellow houses of the French Riviera for a ski trek across the Alps with his friend, a high-altitude mountain guide, he didn't know what exactly awaited him. The trek would turn into an extraordinary adventure.Over the course of four years they ascended high into the Alps in winter, following the curve of the mountains from the Mediterranean to the Adriatic, immersing themselves in a strange white world made entirely of snow. In the bitter cold and overlooked by an empty sky, only the effort of moving forward, one difficult stride at a time, separated the days from one another. And as they trudged onwards, the never-ending white of the high Alps cancelled out all feelings hope, fear, memory and regret.What did he stand to gain by inflicting this ordeal on himself? This was no ordinary mountain trek: it was a search for communion with the magic substance of the White.Also available as an audiobook.

Winner of the Prix Renaudot 2019A New York Times Best Book of 2021‘Extraordinarily beautiful… a long last loving glance at the planet.’ Carl Safina, author of Becoming WildThe snow leopard stalks the frozen expanse of the Tibetan plateau – 4,500 metres above sea level. Fierce, silent, near invisible, she is a perfectly adapted predator.Escaping Paris’s urban sprawl, the renowned French adventurer Sylvain Tesson journeys into the frozen wilderness in search of these most elusive creatures.Tightly focused and tautly written, Tesson offers a dazzling account of a singular journey, a meditation on the ruthlessness of the natural world, a plea for ecological sanity and a reflection on the lost art of patience.***‘One of the best books of the year.’ Financial Times‘A transcendent travel writer.’ Countryfile, Best Books of 2021‘A poetic eulogy to the planet.’ Big Issue

October 1812, Napoleon enters Moscow. The Russians have set fire to the city, soon it will be reduced to a pile of ash. The Emperor equivocates, decides to turn back. This is the beginning of the retreat from Russia, a page of history that has become legendary for its degree of suffering and horror, but also for the heroic acts that took place.Two hundred years later, Sylvain Tesson, accompanied by four friends (two Russians and two French), decides to follow the route of the retreat. Perched on two Soviet Ural sidecar motorcycles, they will rejoin Paris from Moscow, guided only by the spectres of the two hundred thousand soldiers who died through cold, starvation, and in battle. Twenty five hundred miles travelled in a wild escapade to salute the ghosts of history, across the white plains of Russia.