The author explains how her Costa-winning study of Alexander von Humboldt took her from libraries to mountaintops in South America
Part of me is blissfully happy when I’m locked up in dusty archives and wonderful libraries for weeks on end. I love falling into the words and worlds of “my” protagonists, immersing myself into their lives and thoughts. I become a hermit and disappear for while, but there always comes a point when my restlessness takes over and I have to get out, I need to see and feel the “real” world.
So researching and writing a book about an intrepid explorer who likened his own adventurous drive to being chased by “10,000 pigs” was the perfect combination. Writing about Alexander von Humboldt in The Invention of Nature was a journey through thousands of letters and books, but also through spectacular landscapes.
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