PrintWhite Fever by Jacek Hugo-Bader
Bestselling reportage now available in paperback!
White Fever. A Journey to the Frozen Heart of Siberia
By Jacek Hugo-Bader
Translated by Antonia Lloyd-Jones
Published by Portobello Books
Publishing date: 3 May 2012
ISBN 9781846272707
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This is the story of a journey like no other, as Jacek Hugo-Bader makes his way across Siberia, from Moscow to Vladivostok, in the middle of winter. Travelling alone in a modified Russian jeep, he traverses a continent that is two-and-a-half times bigger than America, awash with bandits and not always fully equipped with roads. Along the way, Hugo-Bader discovers a great deal of tragedy, but also plenty of dark humour among the reindeer shepherds, nomadic tribes, the former hippies, the shamans, and the followers of some of the many arcane religions that flourish in this isolated, impossible region.
A funny, enlightening and thoroughly engaging piece of reportage... Clear-eyed and curious, Hugo-Bader offers a riveting tour of this benighted land.
Financial Times
A witty, inspiring account of an odyssey from Moscow to Vladivostok, into the frozen heart of a dying continent, sparkling with vignettes of human endurance.
Iain Finlayson, The Times
An extraordinary, compassionate piece of reportage.
Metro
Comparisons with Ryszard Kapuscinski are inevitable. I think he's just as good, if not better.
Wendell Steavenson
Despite the deep psychological scars left by Stalin & Co as well as the utterly bleak prospects for its inhabitants, the region's dark, dark humour burns like home-brewed vodka on your throat.
Wanderlust
This gently devastating account of an odyssey is a gem.
Sunday Times Must Read
Jacek Hugo-Bader is a Polish journalist for the leading daily paper, Gazeta Wyborcza. He is a former special needs teacher, loader of trucks, weigher of pigs, and counsellor of troubled couples. He lives in Warsaw. White Fever is his first book to be translated into English.