Wild: An Elemental Journey

Author(s): Jay Griffiths

Travel Writing

 I took seven years over this work, spent all I had, my time, money and energy. Part of the journey was a green riot and part a deathly bleakness. I got ill, I got well. I went to the freedom fighters of West Papua and sang my head off in their highlands. I met cannibals infinitely kinder and more trustworthy than the murderous missionaries who evangelize them. I anchored a boat to an iceberg where polar bears slept; ate witchetty grubs and visited sea gypsies. I found a paradox of wildness in the glinting softness of its charisma, for what is savage is in the deepest sense gentle and what is wild is kind. In the end - a strangely sweet result - I came back to a wild home...


Product Information

Shortlisted for Orwell Prize 2008

World Book Day: Spread the Word Book to Talk About 2009.

Jay Griffiths is the author of Pip Pip: A Sideways Look at Time, winner of the Barnes & Noble Discover Award for the best new non-fiction writer in the USA (2003). Her writing has appeared in various publications including the London Review of Books, the Idler, the Ecologist, Resurgence, the Observer and the Guardian.

General Fields

  • : 9780141006444
  • : Penguin UK
  • : Penguin (General UK)
  • : August 2008
  • : books

Special Fields

  • : Jay Griffiths
  • : Paperback