LONGLISTED FOR THE SCOTTISH NATIONAL BOOK AWARDS 2026

A NEW YORKER BEST BOOK OF 2026 SO FARH

'The best non-fiction writer of her generation' THE TIMES

'When I read Flyn’s writing I would often exhale with a sense of wonder' GUARDIAN

'Fascinating and masterfully written' ALICE WINN

A lyrical exploration of the world’s most forbiddingly remote places, the supposedly uninhabited wildernesses of the world – and the humans who have always been there, by award-winning and critically acclaimed writer Cal Flyn.

The Savage Landscape takes us into the wild – deep into dark forests, to the top of mountains and into the heart of deserts. It addresses our 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. It is a book full of ideas, beauty and adventure, and one that asks provocative questions about the nature of wilderness and how wild places might be appreciated or preserved.

As with her earlier book Islands of Abandonment, Flyn focuses each chapter on eleven locations chosen for their physical beauty, their perceived isolation and the moral or emotional complexity of the human stories that can be found there. In her search for wilderness, we 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; hunters in the African bush; volcanophiles creeping dangerously close to molten lava; and ocean vessels plunging through the immense waters of the Southern Ocean to Antarctica.

The Savage Landscape will change any reader’s understanding of our place in the world, and how we relate to the other residents of this planet – human and animal. It is a profound and beautiful book about spirituality, environmentalism and the sublime by one of the most gifted writers at work today.

'A book that takes you into the wild and ignites the imagination. Compelling and thought provoking, Flyn’s journey into the heart of the matter challenges us to rethink the relationship between human culture and nature' SUE STUART SMITH

'The Savage Landscape enthralled me—leading me spellbound through our encounters with and imaginings of wilderness and its many faces. In Flyn’s hands, a deeply researched history is given vibrant, propulsive life' JESSICA J LEE