Windswept
why women walk
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- 3,99 €
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- 3,99 €
Beschreibung des Verlags
The story of extraordinary women who lost their way - their sense of self, their identity, their freedom - and found it again through walking in the wild.
'Moving and memorable' Virginia Nicholson, author of How Was It for You?
'A triumph ... I felt as though I were being lifted, carried up to peaks' Charlotte Peacock, author of Into the Mountain: A Life of Nan Shepherd
'A beautiful and meditative memoir' Publishers Weekly
For centuries, the wilds have been male territory, while women sat safely confined at home. But not all women did as they were told, despite the dangers; history reveals women for whom rural walking became inspiration, consolation and liberation.
In this powerful and deeply inspiring book, Annabel Abbs uncovers women who refused to conform, who recognised a biological, emotional and artistic need for wilderness, water and desert - and who took the courageous step of walking unpeopled and often forbidding landscapes.
Part wild-walk, part memoir, Windswept follows an exhilarating journey from Abbs's isolated, car-less childhood to her walking the remote paths trodden by extraordinary women, including Georgia O'Keeffe in the empty plains of Texas and New Mexico, Nan Shepherd in the mountains of Scotland, Gwen John following the Garonne, Simone de Beauvoir in the mountains and forests of France and Daphne du Maurier along the River Rhone.
A single question pulses through their walks: How does a woman change once she becomes windswept?
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
British novelist Abbs (The Joyce Girl) finds power in the mundane act of walking in this beautiful and meditative memoir. After a severe head injury temporarily left Abbs unable to walk, she vowed never to take that ability for granted again. Once she was cleared to walk, she set out to retrace the footsteps of notable women who "walked for inspiration, consolation, and liberation," but whose travels curiously weren't recognized like the ones of their "famous male counterparts." She followed Georgia O'Keefe's steps through New Mexico and Texas; Welsh painter Gwen John's amblings along the River Garonne in France; Simone de Beauvoir's hikes in rural France; and "lifelong walker" Daphne du Maurier's rambles along the River Rhône. As she reveled in the beauty of nature and considered each woman's story, Abbs took a deep dive into her own psyche, coming to terms with her unusual upbringing in the Welsh countryside and her identity, which she contemplates in lyrical prose ("a self is not a thing, but a becoming"). By her trek's end, she realized "my journey in their footsteps was also an attempt to walk and write myself free." This lush narrative serves as the perfect excuse to get moving.