In Conversation with Cal Flyn - Inverness

Recently shortlisted for the Wainwright Prize for Conservation Writing 2026, The Savage Landscape leads the reader on an unforgettable journey through the world’s wildest landscapes that have remained largely untouched by humans. This book takes us into the wild – deep into dark forests, to the top of mountains and into the heart of deserts. It addresses out deep yearnings to be awed and inspired by landscapes that remain beyond our reach and examines what nature gets up to in the absence of humans. In 10 chapters, each loosely structured around a visit to some of the world’s wildest and most invigorating landscapes, the book asks provocative questions about the nature of wilderness and how wild places might best be appreciated or preserved. These locations have been chosen for their physical beauty, their perceived isolation, and the moral or emotional complexity of the human stories that can be found there. In this search for wilderness, we will meet ascetics in search of theophany in the desert; lonely shepherds seeing off wolves under the stars; missionaries preaching from shacks deep in the jungle; wise lamas meditating under lofty mountain peaks.