Robyn Davidson

When Robyn Davidson first set out to make her journey across the deserts of Australia, alone but for her dog and four camels, she was called a lunatic, a would-be suicide, and a shameless publicity seeker. But this high-spirited, engrossing book reveals that she is something more: a genuine traveler driven by a love of Australia's landscape, an empathy for its indigenous people, and a willingness to cast away the trappings of her former identity.

In 1977, twenty-seven-year-old Robyn Davidson set off with a dog and four camels to cross 1,700 miles of Australian desert to the sea. A life of almost constant travelling followed. From the deserts of Australia, to Sydney's underworld; from Sixties street life, to the London literary scene; from migrating with nomads in Tibet, to 'marrying' an Indian prince, Davidson's quest was motivated by an unquenchable curiosity about other ways of seeing and...