Philip Marsden is the award-winning author of a number of books, each of which explores in different ways notions of place and landscape, of the yearning for lands lost or hoped for, the ways that topography shapes the lives of individuals or entire nations. Having written about the Middle East, Ethiopia, the Caucasus and the old Soviet Union, more recent books have been set closer to home. Set around a walk in Cornwall, Rising Ground (2014) looks at sacred landscapes, 'topophilia' and the capacity for particular physical features to generate story. It was described by The Spectator as 'an extraordinary, complex and fascinating book'.
More recently, in The Summer Isles: A Voyage of the Imagination (2019) he sailed single-handed up the west coasts of Ireland and Scotland, examining islands both real and imaginary. The book was picked out by a Wall Street Journal critic as 'one of the most brilliant, imaginative and alluring travel books I have read in a long time'. He lives on the upper Fal in Cornwall, is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and his work has been translated into more than a dozen languages.
Philip's books include:
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