High Caucasus: A Mountain Quest in Russia’s Haunted Hinterland

"So this is another hike, and I think the longest one on the shortlist—a dramatic 1000-mile hike through the mountainous north Caucasus, passing through seven Russian republics from the Black Sea to the Caspian. One of the key elements of this book is that Tom Parfitt, a longtime newspaper correspondent in Moscow, deftly weaves in his own experiences, including the trauma of covering the 2004 Beslan school siege in which more than 300 hostages died. On the hike he also explores the region’s landscapes, peoples, cultures and extremely turbulent history. It was a journey he did some years ago, but the book feels very topical as there are obviously some striking parallels with the current situation in Ukraine. As an author, he also has a crisp, engaging writing style, which I really enjoyed. Whenever I travel for work or pleasure, I always like to read local literature and travel writing about that place. It gives a different insight into the culture and history of the places you are experiencing. I was lucky enough to read High Caucasus while I was travelling through the Georgian side of the Caucasus and I had a much richer experience as a result. Absolutely. The ‘death’ of travel writing has become its own trope, wheeled out every few years. But it’s one of the oldest forms of writing and there is always going to be a need for it. The books on this shortlist, and many others that have been released in recent years, show that travel writing is in a good state of health. And there are plenty of books coming out soon that I’m excited about too. In recent years, we have started to see a diversification of travel writing. There are more authors from a broader range of backgrounds, and they are helping to reinvigorate the genre by bringing fresh perspectives and covering places, cultures and histories that have been overlooked or even actively suppressed. One thing I love about travel writing is that it is a capacious genre. There are lots of different elements you can bring into it, whatever topic you want to cover or style you want to use. This year’s shortlists—not just for the Edward Stanford Travel Book of the Year, but also the Viking Award for Fiction with a Sense of Place and the Children’s Travel Book of the Year—really illustrate that. So, yes, I’m very positive about the future of travel writing."