NICK THORPE
THE DANUBE. A JOURNEY AGAINST THE CURRENT

The book is a lively mix of geography, myths, natural history and the lives of the people. (The Guardian)

From the Black Sea to the Black Forest: unlike famous Danube travellers before him, the British journalist and filmmaker Thorpe takes the opposite route and approaches the source of the almost 3000 kilometre-long river in Germany from the mouth upwards on foot, by bike, boat, train and sometimes by car. In the Balkans, Thorpe notes right at the beginning, civilised cultures developed long before the West. And so, on his journey, he succinctly interweaves the past with the present and manages to elicit wonderful stories from a wide variety of people - from boatmen to monks, from scientists to Roma girls - and rediscover Europe and its cultural history.

Moderation Isolde Charim, author and philosopher

Nick Thorpe, born in Upnor (Great Britain) in 1960, has lived in Budapest as a journalist and filmmaker since 1986. He first reported for the Independent and the Guardian and since 1996 as Central Europe correspondent for the BBC. Most recently published: 89 The Unfinished Revolution. Power and Powerlessness in Eastern Europe (2009).
His book Die Donau. Eine Reise gegen den Strom (translated from the English by Brigitte Hilzensauer) will be published by Zsolnay in August 2017.

In co-operation with Zsolnay Verlag.