About Hugh Thomson

Hugh Thomson believes strongly that the world is not as explored as we like to suppose.

He writes about the wilder corners of the planet, from the edges of Peru to the Himalayas, looking for Inca ruins and lost cultures. Geographical commented that 'He is a writer who explores and not an explorer who writes.'

For 'The Green Road into the Trees', he returned to Britain to write about his own country. It won the inaugural Wainwright Prize for Best Nature and Travel Writing. 'An immensely enjoyable book: curious, articulate, intellectually playful and savagely candid.' Spectator.

For the recent sequel, 'One Man and a Mule', he decided to have ‘a South American adventure in England’ by taking a mule as a pack animal across the North of England.

His previous books include: 'The White Rock', 'Nanda Devi' and 'Cochineal Red: Travels through Ancient Peru' (all Weidenfeld & Nicolson), and he has collected some of his favourite places in the lavishly illustrated '50 Wonders of the World'.

In 2009 he wrote 'Tequila Oil', a memoir about getting lost in Mexico when he was eighteen and, in the words of the Alice Cooper song, 'didn't know what he wanted'. It was serialised by BBC R4 as 'Book of the Week'.

"Delightful, celebratory and honest....In a way 'Tequila Oil' is the first installment of his now-complete trilogy, his 'Cochineal Red' and 'The White Rock' being two of the finest books on Latin America of recent years." (Rory MacLean, The Guardian)