Read Adventurously this Summer with Kira Salak’s Extreme-Travel Memoirs

Dear Readers,

We are thrilled to announce the release of our beautifully repackaged editions of PEN Award winning journalist Kira Salak’s inspiring travel memoirs, Four Corners: A Journey into Papua New Guinea and The Cruelest Journey: Six Hundred Miles to Timbuktu. In Four Corners, Kira Salak was the first woman ever to traverse Papua New Guinea alone, encountering a slew of interesting characters from cannibals to guerrilla leaders, all while facing incessant harassment from men who simply cannot fathom why a woman would travel without a male companion. In The Cruelest Journey, Kira Salak became the first person in the world to single-handedly kayak the six-hundred miles up the Niger River to Timbuktu—“the golden city of the Middle Ages” and fabled “doorway to the end of the world.” Written with electrifying detail that brings these previously impenetrable landscapes to life, Salak’s memoirs combine the lyricism of a seasoned prose writer with the audacious spirit of a daredevil, perfect for travel aficionados and novices alike.

Sold Out

Four Corners: A Journey into the Heart of Papua New Guinea

$14.99

by Kira Salak

“Kira Salak is tough, a real life Lara Croft… unlike many travel writers, she is hip to her inner workings.”

—The New York Times

Book Details:

eBook • ISBN: 9781632060020
Publication date: Jun 3, 2014

eBook available from: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Ebook | iTunes | Kobo

Download the reading group guide

Available from eBook retailers

Sold Out

The Cruelest Journey: Six Hundred Miles to Timbuktu

$14.99

by Kira Salak

"Salak's trip is deeply personal, and she shares her fears, her triumphs, and her thoughts along the way with the reader, making it an accessible, involving journey for her audience."

—Booklist

eBook • ISBN: 9781632060679
Publication date: Jun 2, 2015

eBook available from: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Bookshop | iTunes | Kobo

Download the Reading Group Guide

Available from eBook retailers

About the Author

Kira Salak is a decorated journalist, having previously won the PEN Award in Journalism, National Geographic Emerging Explorer Award, the Lowell Thomas Gold Award (several times), the AWP Prague Fellowship Award in Nonfiction, and the Writer’s at Work/Utah Arts Council Fellowship Award in Nonfiction. She is also a prolific writer, having previously published three books, The Cruelest Journey, The White Mary (her first novel), and Four Corners: A Journey into the Heart of Papua New Guinea (a New York Times Notable Travel Book). Her work has been published in both the Best American Travel Writing and Best American Fiction anthologies. She often writes articles for National Geographic, The Washington Post, and The New York Times Magazine. She is the first woman to kayak 600 miles on the Niger River, and the first woman to travel through Papua New Guinea alone. She lives with her husband and daughter, but is currently traveling alone to an undisclosed location for her next work of nonfiction.

BUY THE EBOOKS

Andrés Neuman Presents His Book How to Travel Without Seeing

Like the writing of Ralph Ellison, Joan Didion and Clarice Lispector, the nonfiction of Andrés Neuman is as satisfying and electric as his fiction, if not more so. Roberto Bolaño said “The literature of the twenty-first century will belong to Neuman and a few of his blood brothers.” Neuman is a literary prodigy who has more than fulfilled his early promise. In How To Travel Without Seeing (August 30th 2016), the first english language translation of his nonfiction, Neuman presents a kaleidoscopic view of the 19 Latin American countries he toured as the winner of the prestigious Premio Alfaguara prize. A kinetic work that is at once puckish and poetic, this travelogue is a knowing guide to our ever-changing modern world. 

A seasoned traveler, Neuman will be covering a lot of ground in the U.S. this fall:

AUTHOR EVENTS:

• August 19: Edinburgh International Book Festival (Edinburgh, Scotland, UK)

• August 19: Edinburgh International Book Festival Solo Event  (Edinburgh, Scotland, UK)

• October 30: Green Apple Books on the Park (San Francisco, CA)

• October 31: San Francisco State University (San Francisco, CA)

• October 31: University of Portland (Portland, OR) 

• November 1: Portland State University (Portland, OR)

• November 1: Reed College (Portland, OR)

• November 1: Powell's Books (Portland, OR)

• November 2: Brazos Bookstore (Houston, TX)

• November 3: UT Dallas (Dallas, TX)

• November 5-6: Texas Book Festival (Austin, TX)

• November 7: Fordham University (Bronx, NY)

• November 7: McNally Jackson Bookstore event with Carlos Fonseca (New York, NY)

• November 9: With Carlos Fonseca at Rutgers University (New Brunswick, NJ)

• November 10: Bird in Hand, with Johns Hopkins University (Baltimore, MD)

Get the book:

Author Tour and Events for Almost Home by Githa Hariharan

We're proud to be publishing the acclaimed Indian author Githa Hariharan's book of travel essays, Almost Home: Finding a Place in the World from Kashmir to New York. In a series of engrossing and politically charged essays, Hariharan explores some of the world’s most radiant—and radioactive—places, across both time and space. A great fan of Hariharan’s, J.M. Coetzee frames her book this way:

“In essays that bespeak a thoroughly cosmopolitan sensibility, Githa Hariharan not only takes us on illuminating tours through cities rich in history, but gives a voice to urban people from all over the world—Kashmir, Palestine, Delhi—trying to live with basic human dignity under circumstances of dire repression or crushing poverty.”

In Almost Home, Githa Hariharan offers a timely perspective on our post-colonial, rapidly globalizing world via some of its most contested places—Delhi, Mumbai, Kashmir, Palestine, Algeria, Tokyo, Washington, New York—posing the questions, to whom does a city belong, and what makes a place “home”?

Preorder from: Amazon | IndieBound

We're delighted that Githa will be touring the US this Spring. Catch her in person and pick up a copy of Almost Home at these events:

Author Tour and Events:

• March 22: “Mapping Asian American New York” with Meena Alexander and Peter Kwong at Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute at Hunter College (New York, NY)

• March 23: “Reclaiming Home: Resisting Exclusion in India Today” at Rutgers (New Brunswick, NJ)

• March 24: In Conversation with Anjali Singh at McNally Jackson (New York, NY)

• March 25: “Narrating Contested Homes: Fiction and Real Life" at New York University (New York, NY)

• March 28: “Portraits of India” with Somini Sengupta at Asian American Writers Workshop (New York, NY)

• April 4: Indo American Arts Council and South Asian Journalists Association at Columbia University (New York, NY)

• April 7: Living Writers speaker series at UC Santa Cruz (Santa Cruz, CA)

• April 8: talk at UC Santa Cruz (Santa Cruz, CA)

• April 13: “Making Dreams Travel: Narrating Indian Women” at UC Berkeley (Berkeley, CA)