He is 40-years-old, and has studied gorillas, tigers, lions, and dozens of other big and dangerous examples of wildlife. On his physical and spiritual journey, the author is joined by George Schaller, an esteemed applied biologist. they are banned from returning to their homes in Western China). Many people he meets, such as those living in the village of Dhorpatan, 3,000 feet above sea level, are Tibetan refuges (i.e. He travels through some exceedingly impoverished regions and reflects on how the Buddha was also turned away from a life of consumerism toward one of self-reflection and social-helping after he left his Braham/aristocratic home and observed the world’s various sufferings. He presents many of the Tibetan people he meets and notes their stoic lifestyles. He has led the life of a socialite ever since then, though his trip to Asia may be changing his materialist point-of-view.

He graduated from Yale University and travelled the world, at one point working with leading authors in France he helped found the famous literary magazine The Paris Review, in 1953. Matthiessen shares some of his backstory: he was born and raised in Manhattan to a wealthy family. He walked through (and around) the famously tall mountain-range, Annapurna, and through dangerous mountain passes, such as the Jangla Bhanjayang Pass later in The Snow Leopard, Matthiessen records his experience of walking along and over majestic rivers, including the Bheri River, where three separate rivers conjoin. His entire journey will last two months and will traverse through 250 miles of rocky landscape. It is late September in 1973, and Matthiessen is 46-year-old. The work begins with Matthiessen’s initial journeys through Nepal. The Snow Leopard is told in the first person through Matthiessen’s travel journals, along with supporting documents such as maps. It was praised for its seamless integration of memoir, travelogue, natural history, and religious writing. Its themes include spiritual growth, moral development, reckoning with mortality, and beauty. The Snow Leopard won the National Book Award in 1979, and Matthiessen remains the rare author to have won a National Book Award in fiction and nonfiction. The Snow Leopard (1978) by American author, editor, and naturalist Peter Matthiessen (1927-2014) follows the author’s physical and spiritual journey to a holy shrine in the Himalayan mountains in Nepal, as well as his fascination with finding a rarely seen snow leopard.

The snow leopard matthiessen