William deBuys (The Trail to Kanjiroba) discusses his latest book in conversation with Bill McKibben. In The Trail to Kanjiroba deBuys brings attributes of memoir and travel and nature writing to bear on humanity’s most significant existential crisis. His participation in extended medical expeditions to provide basic medical services to residents of Upper Dolpo, a remote, ethnically Tibetan region of northwestern Nepal, led to his writing this celebration of the land’s staggering natural beauty and to exploring new ways to think about caring for the Earth.
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“Bill deBuys is one of the planet’s great observers, and this may be his masterwork—a story of an exploration, of Nepal, but also of the present and future of this planet. Caring for that world, and all that’s in it, is necessary, painful, and as he makes clear, exquisitely beautiful work.” —Bill McKibben, author of The End of Nature
“The Trail to Kanjiroba is a transformative path on the page by one of America’s most eloquent writers. Bill deBuys has written a walking prayer about beauty, hope, and longing in the service of human dignity and a living planet. Though set in Nepal in the high altitude grace of Dolpo, this is a spiritual pilgrimage contemplating the journey from grief toward love. Hands pressed together, I hold these words close and bow.” —Terry Tempest Williams, writer-in-residence, Harvard Divinity School
“[One of] seven fascinating and purposeful new books [to] revive the mystery, the history and the possibilities of the reawakened planet. . . . deBuys argues for the value of ‘care over cure,’ not only for underserved communities but for the imperiled planet.” —Liesl Schllinger, The New York Times Book Review
