Winner of the Prix Renaudot 2019

A New York Times Best Book of 2021

‘Extraordinarily beautiful… a long last loving glance at the planet.’ Carl Safina, author of Becoming Wild

The snow leopard stalks the frozen expanse of the Tibetan plateau – 4,500 metres above sea level. Fierce, silent, near invisible, she is a perfectly adapted predator.

Escaping Paris’s urban sprawl, the renowned French adventurer Sylvain Tesson journeys into the frozen wilderness in search of these most elusive creatures.

Tightly focused and tautly written, Tesson offers a dazzling account of a singular journey, a meditation on the ruthlessness of the natural world, a plea for ecological sanity and a reflection on the lost art of patience.

***

‘One of the best books of the year.’ Financial Times

‘A transcendent travel writer.’ Countryfile, Best Books of 2021

‘A poetic eulogy to the planet.’ Big Issue

‘In The Art of Patience: Seeking the Snow Leopard in Tibet, the French writer Sylvain Tesson chronicles his rapturous journey through Tibet’s Chantang plateau with the wildlife photographer Vincent Munier. Tesson’s words, in a ravishing translation by Frank Wynne, paint pictures as vivid as any photograph.’ -- Liesl Schillinger, New York Times, 'Best Books of 2021', Travel

‘Tesson is a transcendent travel writer… [The Art of Patience] inspires action, thought, silence – and perhaps also prayer.’

‘A wonderful evocation of waiting and watching for nature.’

‘Beautifully written, beautifully translated, intensely moving and totally absorbing.’

‘The Art of Patience is extraordinarily beautiful, a narrative of prose that flows with poetry, a long last loving glance at the planet, a visit to the vital bedside of a living world determined to stay alive.’

‘I found it hard to resist… there is so much more to this elegantly written book than the story of a search. It is also a philosophical consideration of the benefits of silence, waiting and personal reflection; an ode to the psychological effect of natural beauty; and a poetic eulogy to the planet.’

'Rated as one of the best books this year, this is beautifully translated by Frank Wynne. Readers will be captivated by French adventurer Tesson's love letter to the natural world... Dazzling.'

Sylvain Tesson is one France’s leading travel and nature writers, whose books have won him hundreds and thousands of readers in France and a number of its top prizes, including the 2019 Prix Renaudot for The Art of Patience. His highly regarded Consolations of the Forest was published in English in 2014.

Frank Wynne is an Irish literary translator whose translations, including works by Michel Houllebecq, Frédéric Beigbeder and Pierre Lemaitre, have won him a number of prizes. His translation of Virginie Despentes’s Vernon Subutex 1 was shortlisted for the 2018 Booker International Prize.