Far and Away: Reporting from the Brink of Change: Seven Continents, Twenty-Five Years

Author(s): Andrew Solomon

LGBTI & Queer Studies

In 1991 Andrew Solomon rode a tank into Red Square in Moscow with a band of Russian artists protesting the coup after Gorbachev's resignation. In 2002 he was in Afghanistan following the fall of the Taliban; in 2014 he travelled to Myanmar to meet ex-political prisoners as the country slowly, fitfully pushed towards freedom. We find him in Greenland in 2001 researching widespread suffering from depression and on the quest for a rare bird in Zambia in 1998. Far and Away tells these and many other stories of profound upheaval. With his signature brilliance and compassion, Solomon demonstrates both how history is altered by individuals, and how personal identities are altered when governments alter. A journalist and essayist of remarkable perception and prescience, Solomon captures the essence of these cultures across seven continents and twenty-five years and tracks seismic shifts - cultural, political and spiritual. He takes us on a magnificent journey into the heart of extraordinarily diverse experiences, yet shows us the common humanity uniting peoples and places all over the world.

August 2016


Product Information

Welcome-Prize winner and National Book Award winner Andrew Solomon brings his sharp eye and fierce compassion to stories from all over the world

"Andrew Solomon is every bit as magnificent a traveler as he is a writer - in fact, it's difficult at times to determine which is the greater talent. Thankfully, the reader gets to experience both gifts throughout the pages of this deeply impressive and profoundly moving collection. Here is man whose curiosities are vast (politics, art, food, psychology, anthropology), and whose intellect is beautifully honed, but whose spirit is humble and whose heart is enormous. You will not only know the world better after having seen it through Solomon's eyes, you will also care about it more." -- Elizabeth Gilbert "This is a beautiful book, inspired by love of 'away' and uncertainty about 'home,' a celebration of freedom which valuably warns that freedom must sometimes be learned. Much more than 'travel writing,' it's a portrait of our world, made by someone who has been there." -- Salman Rushdie "From Cape Town to Bucharest, and Hangzhou to Tripoli, Andrew Solomon's Far and Away is positively Whitmanian in its openness to difficulty and its embodiment of wonder. I felt exposed and expanded. This book is an ecstatic provocation to understand ourselves not as citizens of nations but as citizens of the entire world, a world whose territories are glorious and troubled and desperately connected." -- Leslie Jamison "Greater than the sum of its parts. It sparkles with insights great and small on the countries and people that [Andrew Solomon] has had the privilege to meet over the last quarter century. Although his perceptions are keen, what he delivers best and with enchanting clarity are their truths, fears, regrets, and hopes. Readers will most certainly be inspired to book a flight, finishing this book en route to some faraway place." Booklist "Andrew Solomon's magisterial Far and Away collects a quarter-century of soul-shaking essays." Vanity Fair

Andrew Solomon holds a PhD in psychology from the University of Cambridge; is a professor of psychology at Columbia University and President of PEN American Center; and is a regular contributor to the Guardian, the New Yorker, and the New York Times. A lecturer and activist, he is the author of Far from the Tree: Parents, Children, and the Search for Identity, which won the Wellcome Trust Book Prize, the National Book Critics Circle Award and many other awards; and The Noonday Demon; An Atlas of Depression, which won the National Book Award, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, and has been published in twenty-four languages. His TED talks have been viewed over 12 million times. A dual UK/US national, he lives in London and New York. www.andrewsolomon.com.

General Fields

  • : 9781784741129
  • : Vintage Publishing
  • : Chatto & Windus
  • : 0.66
  • : March 2016
  • : 234mm X 153mm X 35mm
  • : United Kingdom
  • : August 2016
  • : books

Special Fields

  • : 592
  • : 814.54
  • : English
  • : 816
  • : Paperback
  • : Andrew Solomon