Bernadette McDonald is the author of ten books on mountaineering and mountain culture, including Alpine Warriors (RMB 2015), Keeper of the Mountains (RMB 2012) and Freedom Climbers (RMB 2011). She has received numerous mountain writing awards, including Italy’s ITAS Prize (2010), and is a two-time winner of India’s Kekoo Naoroji Award for mountain literature (2008 and 2009). In 2011 Bernadette’s first book with RMB, Freedom Climbers, won the Grand Prize at the Banff Mountain Book Festival (Canada), the Boardman Tasker Prize (UK) and the American Alpine Club’s H. Adams Carter Literary Award. Bernadette splits her time between Banff, Alberta, and Naramata, British Columbia.
Climbing legends don't come more legendary than Voytek Kurtyka, nor
their biographers more diligent, stylish and informed than
Bernadette McDonald. This book's her best yet - an enthralling
account of a life focused around audacious ascents in the World's
Greater Ranges by the man they nicknamed "The Animal". Proof here
that animals have souls, and only readers without one could fail to
be impressed!-- (03/01/2017)
Art of Freedom is a brilliant work of insight, not only into the
life of the great alpinist, but also at the questions that compel
us to the mountains in the first place; a work of art that will
provoke and inform discussions on the potential transformative
power of climbing for decades to come.-- (02/24/2018)
In Art of Freedom, Bernadette McDonald succeeds in getting inside
the complex character of Voytek Kurtyka in a book that slowly takes
hold of the reader and makes it hard to put down.--Cloudburst
(05/01/2018)
Art of Freedom explores the fascinating complexity of Voytek
Kurtyka, an alpinist who was driven by aesthetics and by style to
achieve some of the most notable ascents in the Himalaya and
Karakoram, many of which have never been repeated.--
(03/01/2017)
Against all odds, Bernadette McDonald has crafted a masterpiece in
this biography of the dazzling and enigmatic genius of alpinism
that is Voytek Kurtyka. His climbs soar beyond the page even as his
tangled character anchors a vision few have shared. It is almost as
though McDonald comprehends the man better than he does himself.--
(03/01/2017)
Bernadette McDonald has outdone even herself with this stunning
portrayal of the reclusive visionary who turned mountain climbing
into an art form. A mighty impressive work. Bravo!--
(03/01/2017)
In Art of Freedom, Bernadette McDonald dances up the wall adroitly
and with admirable precision. As a biographer, she is Voytek's
match in finding the unlikely fingerholds, the beauty and the
prettiest line.-- (03/01/2017)
In Freedom Climbers, McDonald located the great Polish Himalayan
climbers, including Voytek Kurtyka in the complex political and
mountaineering contexts of Cold War climbing. In Art of Freedom,
she focuses on offering a compelling account of the inner life of
Kurtyka, one of the greatest climbers in history. McDonald pulls no
punches in sharing her insights into Kurtyka's complicated
relationships with partners, the law, climbing goals, risk and
lifestyle, resulting in a picture of a truly remarkable man.
Everyone interested in what drives a man capable of accomplishing
some of the greatest climbs ever attempted will find this a very
rewarding read.-- (03/01/2017)
It's no exaggeration for me to say that Bernadette McDonald's Art
of Freedom is among the most eagerly anticipated mountaineering
books of the decade--a work by one of the most respected writers in
the genre about one of climbing's greatest legends. Both Voytek
Kurtyka's ascents and his philosophy have long represented a form
of quiet resistance to the commercialism and competition that
encroach on much of adventure media. Now, at last, readers have a
chance to glimpse more of his vision of alpinism as an art, a path
and a deeply personal quest. From scenes of Kurtyka climbing
storm-blasted walls in the Greater Ranges, to standing in his
mist-drenched garden, coffee cup in hand, we perceive a sense of
some mysterious, almost numinous impulse that runs through it all,
the possibility that, as Kurtyka himself puts it, that "Beauty is
some kind of laser connection to higher worlds."-- (03/01/2017)
Many years ago my friend Alex MacIntyre told me stories about his
climbing partner Voytek Kurtyka, and their fast, light ascents of
big walls in the high Himalaya. Voytek seemed a near mythical
figure, for whom such intense climbing was an art form and a
spiritual endeavor. He shunned publicity, and for decades remained
a 'climber's climber', little known outside the inner sanctum of
mountaineering. With this graceful biography, Bernadette McDonald
now introduces Voytek to a wide audience. She creates a 3D picture
of a remarkable alpinist, following the arc of his astonishing life
and sharing with us his climbs, his writings, his complexities and
his wisdom. Art of Freedom is an important addition to
mountaineering history and literature, and is sure to become a
classic.-- (03/01/2017)
No other author living today writes about mountaineering with the
insight, care and consideration of Bernadette McDonald. Like the
alpinists she portrays, McDonald leads us into the unknown, shining
a bright and burning light into the hearts and minds of those who
have dedicated their lives to exploring the world's great ranges.--
(03/01/2017)
Polish climbers, particularly the pre-perestroika generation, hold
a special place in the history of alpinism. Collectively they
climbed more peaks in better style with less gear. And they knew
how to suffer. We looked up to them, we aspired to be half as tough
as they were. One climber, Voytek, was a world unto his own. His
physical capability was legend, yet what set him part was a hidden
mysticism. We knew it was there. In Art of Freedom Bernadette
follows Voytek's thread as young man coming of age in post-war,
communist Poland to the greater ranges. We learn of the
intellectual drive that fueled these great ascents. Regardless of
your background, from the armchair to the alpine suffer artist,
there is something that will resonate with being human, living by
your ideals and enjoying life in its purest form.--
(03/01/2017)
Sieging Himalayan peaks with masses of manpower, supplies and rope
was always the norm when climbing in the death zone, but during the
nineteen-seventies and -eighties, a new breed of climber shunned
those behemoth expeditions to experiment with a small-team
philosophy that embraced risk and uncertainty, and utilized
self-reliance and speed. The most visionary of these prophets was a
soft-spoken Pole named Voytek Kurtyka. He tackled his ascents with
an ascetic, intellectual minimalism that resulted in pure,
unadulterated alpinism. Voytek taught us that the style by which
one climbs a mountain is what it's all about, and the summit is
merely a stop along the way.-- (03/01/2017)
The story of Kurtyka's departure from the conventions of
high-altitude mountaineering, and the legacy left by his impeccable
lines, will hold a special place in the history of alpinism. It
will continue to remind us that the experience is what we bring
home from the mountains, not the summits.-- (03/01/2017)
This biography of the enigmatic Voytek Kurtyka is intimate and
poised, revealing much that we did not know about Kurtyka, but
never dispelling the mystery that surrounds him. Voytek's life has
been a quest to find a language to communicate with mountains. This
story of his life proves that mountaineering can itself be a form
of art, a state of being that perhaps only Kurtyka has achieved.--
(03/01/2017)
This book tells both the history and the future of alpine climbing.
Art of Freedom reveals profound lessons about climbing, deeply
rooted in romanticism, blood, sweat and toil, as reflected by one
of it's greatest protagonists. Voytek Kurtyka is a legend, in part
for his many brilliant climbs, both attempted and accomplished. But
even more so for his intellect, his self-reflection, and his growth
from each experience--both the tragic and the triumphant. Here, for
the first time, we have full access to his travails and his
musings. An absolute gem of a book.-- (03/01/2017)
With the accuracy of a musician and the sensitivity of a writer,
Bernadette McDonald unveils the myth of the great Voytek. Joining
him on the journey through his remarkable mountaineering opus she
collects forgotten notes from the steep faces of the Himalaya, the
granite spires of Troll and Trango, and composes them into a
magnificent symphony.-- (03/01/2017)
Wonderfully strange, muscular, poetic at heart, and brimming with
curiosity, Art of Freedom portrays the towering, but intensely
reclusive Polish mountaineer, Voytek Kurtyka. By now I've come to
expect Bernadette McDonald's vivid writing style, her over-research
(a high compliment, ) and cosmopolitan insights. Once again, she
raises the bar, pushing mountain literature to do what it does
best: discover. She has become a virtual ambassador to the terra
incognita of post-Soviet mountain culture in Eastern Europe, a
territory every bit as buried in silence or myth as Tibet used to
be. With Art of Freedom, I now recognize another of McDonald's
gifts, her quiet searching for what I'll call "deep ascent." At
some point - during a storm, facing a crux, or otherwise outlasting
the extremes - many climbers experience an altered or transforming
perception. A rare few have the ability to express and live it as a
convincing philosophy. In Voytek Kurtyka's biography, Bernadette
McDonald gives us yet another such spirit, a mountaineer in whom
the mountains live.-- (03/01/2017)
I highly recommend this book. Buy it now and read it. Put it on
your Christmas list for your friends. Perhaps give it to your
budding climber or your student graduating high school or college
next spring. McDonald crafted a significant biography of Voytek
Kurtyka that has enough lessons of success, failure, and
maintaining joy through it all that goes beyond climbing and can
apply to how we can all live our lives.-- (03/01/2017)
McDonald has a magical knack for honing in on what makes climbers
tick, and she definitely unravels threads from the enigma that is
Kurtyka in her book.-- (07/14/2017)
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