In the same vivid anecdotal style, Joe recalls the severe snowstorm which put an end to an attempt with four others on Gangchempo and the infection which forced him to abandon the climb on Cho Oyu in Tibet. During that expedition he has a disturbing encounter with a party of political refugees and a 4 year old boy fleeing across the Tibetan border. He becomes obsessed with stories of Chinese brutality in the old world Tibet they overran by force 40 years ago. He also begins to question the ethics of playing rich men's games in Third World countries, contributing little to the local people who endure a fearful struggle to survive. Oppression abroad also makes him see mindless violence in his home town of Sheffield in a new light. The book ends with his first trip to the Andes in Peru since TOUCHING THE VOID. There, besides completing one dramatic and breathtaking climb, he is forced to witness violence nakedly exposed exposed in everyday life and to experience in quite unexpected circumstances the trauma of reliving the dance with death he described so vividly in his first bestselling book.
- ISBN10 0224042165
- ISBN13 9780224042161
- Publish Date 11 January 1996
- Publish Status Out of Print
- Out of Print 9 November 2006
- Publish Country GB
- Publisher Vintage Publishing
- Imprint Jonathan Cape Ltd
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 304
- Language English