Seven Years in Tibet is about an expedition to Tibet that goes awry. In 1939, Heinrich Harrer, an Austrian mountaineer, joins an expedition to the Nanga Parbat at the time his country is entering the Second World War. As they make their way from Austria to Karachi, the expedition members are held by British officials as war enemies and put in a detention camp in Ahmednagar near Bombay, and later in Dehradun. After a long period in captivity, they somehow manage to escape and resume their journey. While the others decide to return, Harrer and his fellow hiker, Aufschnaiter, make their way to Tibet to reach Nanga Parbat. While the world believes that they perished on their way, they actually managed to safely enter Lhasa, the Tibetan capital. This happened in 1946. They lived there for nearly seven years. In this magnificent personal account, Harrer writes about his experiences in Tibet, including his friendship with the 14th Dalai Lama. The book was first published in 1952 and became a bestseller in the U.S. It was translated into 53 languages.
Heinrich Harrer was an Austrian mountaineer, skier, and writer. He was part of a four-member team which was the first to climb the precipitous North Face of Eiger in the Swiss Alps. He is perhaps most famous for writing Seven Years in Tibet, which recounts the incredible tale of his journey to Tibet and the years he spent with the Tibetan people. A passionate mountaineer, he undertook expeditions to the unexplored mountains of Alaska, Puncak Jaya, which is the highest summit in Oceania, and the Neolithic quarries at Ya-Li-Me. He recorded his thrilling tales of mountaineering in over twenty books, including The White Spider, and I Come From The Stone Age. |
