Seven Years in Tibet

A landmark in travel writing, this is the incredible true story of Heinrich Harrer’s escape across the Himalayas to Tibet, set against the backdrop of the Second World War.

Heinrich Harrer, already one of the greatest mountaineers of his time, was climbing in the Himalayas when war broke out in Europe. He was imprisoned by the British in India but succeeded in escaping and fled to Tibet. Settling in Lhasa, the Forbidden City, where he became a friend and tutor to the Dalai Lama, Heinrich Harrer spent seven years gaining a more profound understanding of Tibet and the Tibetans than any Westerner before him.

More recently made into a film starring Brad Pitt, Seven Years in Tibet is a stunning story of incredible courage and self-reliance by one of the twentieth century’s best travel writers.

Reviews

‘It deserves its place among the few great travel stories of our times.’ The Times

‘This is an absorbing and remarkable travel tale that also gives unparalleled accounts of the life and customs of an inaccessible region.’ Sunday Times

‘Few adventurers in this century have had the combined luck and hardihood to return with such news as this. Fewer still have rendered it so powerfully unadorned.’
Times Literary Supplement

‘Some books, like some mountains, are lonely and unrivalled peaks. This is one of them.’ Economist

About the author

Heinrich Harrer was born in 1912 in Carinthia. His skiing prowess won him a place in the 1936 Austrian Olympic team. He was part of the team that first scaled the notorious North Face of the Eiger in 1938, an adventure recounted in his book The White Spider. He died in 2006.