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Polly Clark and Dan Richards are not just well-travelled writers – their usual destinations are the world’s inhospitable regions like deserts, mountains, steppes and never-ending ice. Their expeditions are motivated by questions about the meaning of life and man’s relationship to nature; their books bear witness to this.
In her novel Tiger Polly Clark tells the story of a dynasty of wild Siberian tigers and the people who live alongside these animals. The novel resulted from a research trip to the Russian taiga. Clark describes the depravations, isolation, merciless cold and the fascination emanating from the wild animals. At the heart of the narrative is man’s coexistence with animals in unspoiled nature and their mutual dependency in the fight for survival.

In Outpost, A Journey to the Wild Ends of the Earth Dan Richards sets out on journeys to secluded lodgings that were once built to facilitate life in the wild. He calls them alien artifacts for hikers, shepherds and naturalists, for example, in Iceland, the US, Scotland or Japan. These places were often retreats for writers like Jack Kerouac, Dylan Thomas or Roald Dahl, and give an upside-down view of the world. Outpost is a book about breathtaking trips and also an attempt to understand the longing for a more basic life.

What do we experience in the wild? What motivates us to seek it? Is it the urge for a more basic life? Is it a quest that also occurs in poetry?

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