Coming soon!

the wandering

by Jacques Marais

“You think of absolutely nothing when you fall, yet your mind fire-wires a billion sensory details directly into your consciousness. Head over heels you spin, through the sky, with your neocortex computing you have less than two seconds left to live before you shatter onto the rock-scattered impact zone below” ...

This is the start of the ending of the story Jacques Marais tells in THE WANDERING, and it was after this climbing accident that his life rebooted. Gods or angels or the magic of pure science intervened, and he walked away from this brush with death, body battered and broken and bruised, but with life undeniably intact.
 
Months of impaired mobility and ever-present pain during his recovery prompted Marais to revisit his ‘Wander Years’ as an award-winning photographer and journalist, in the process engaging once again with those off-beat adventures which shaped life before the fall. THE WANDERING probes a handpicked selection of Marais’ standout stories, up to that seminal moment when he somehow side-stepped death.
 
Marais captures all his travels – and travails – within some of Planet Earth’s most breathtaking and remote landscapes with eloquence, poignancy and his trademark blend of self-deprecating humour. Part memoir, part travel journal and part gonzo reportage, the prose traces an emotionally intricate journey through six decades of living close to the bone. Why he was lucky enough to survive – and whether this leaves him with an express purpose to fulfil in this life – may be the definitive question he must answer …
 
 

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