Sieging Himalayan peaks with masses of manpower, supplies and rope was always the norm when climbing in the death zone, but during the nineteen-seventies and –eighties, a new breed of climber shunned those behemoth expeditions to experiment with a small-team philosophy that embraced risk and uncertainty, and utilized self-reliance and speed. The most visionary of these prophets was a soft-spoken Pole named Voytek Kurtyka. He tackled his ascents with an ascetic, intellectual minimalism that resulted in pure, unadulterated alpinism. Voytek taught us that the style by which one climbs a mountain is what it’s all about, and the summit is merely a stop along the way.

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"...McDonald unearths and reveals much about Kurtyka’s subtle and nuanced inner journey as well as rich details of his demanding and challenging climbs on a variety of terrain."

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Wonderfully strange, muscular, poetic at heart, and brimming with curiosity, Art of Freedom portrays the towering, but intensely reclusive Polish mountaineer, Voytek Kurtyka. By now I've come to expect Bernadette McDonald’s vivid writing style, her over-research (a high compliment,) and cosmopolitan insights. Once again, she raises the bar, pushing mountain literature to do what it does best: discover. She has become a virtual ambassador to the terra incognita of post-Soviet mountain culture in Eastern Europe, a territory every bit as buried in silence or myth as Tibet used to be. With Art of Freedom, I now recognize another of McDonald’s gifts, her quiet searching for what I'll call "deep ascent." At some point - during a storm, facing a crux, or otherwise outlasting the extremes - many climbers experience an altered or transforming perception. A rare few have the ability to express and live it as a convincing philosophy. In Voytek Kurtyka’s biography, Bernadette McDonald gives us yet another such spirit, a mountaineer in whom the mountains live.

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No other author living today writes about mountaineering with the insight, care and consideration of Bernadette McDonald. Like the alpinists she portrays, McDonald leads us into the unknown, shining a bright and burning light into the hearts and minds of those who have dedicated their lives to exploring the world’s great ranges.

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In Art of Freedom, Bernadette McDonald dances up the wall adroitly and with admirable precision. As a biographer, she is Voytek's match in finding the unlikely fingerholds, the beauty and the prettiest line.

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It’s no exaggeration for me to say that Bernadette McDonald’s Art of Freedom is among the most eagerly anticipated mountaineering books of the decade—a work by one of the most respected writers in the genre about one of climbing’s greatest legends. Both Voytek Kurtyka’s ascents and his philosophy have long represented a form of quiet resistance to the commercialism and competition that encroach on much of adventure media. Now, at last, readers have a chance to glimpse more of his vision of alpinism as an art, a path and a deeply personal quest. From scenes of Kurtyka climbing storm-blasted walls in the Greater Ranges, to standing in his mist-drenched garden, coffee cup in hand, we perceive a sense of some mysterious, almost numinous impulse that runs through it all, the possibility that, as Kurtyka himself puts it, that “Beauty is some kind of laser connection to higher worlds.”

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In Art of Freedom, Bernadette McDonald succeeds in getting inside the complex character of Voytek Kurtyka in a book that slowly takes hold of the reader and makes it hard to put down.

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Art of Freedom explores the fascinating complexity of Voytek Kurtyka, an alpinist who was driven by aesthetics and by style to achieve some of the most notable ascents in the Himalaya and Karakoram, many of which have never been repeated.

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The story of Kurtyka's departure from the conventions of high-altitude mountaineering, and the legacy left by his impeccable lines, will hold a special place in the history of alpinism. It will continue to remind us that the experience is what we bring home from the mountains, not the summits.

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Against all odds, Bernadette McDonald has crafted a masterpiece in this biography of the dazzling and enigmatic genius of alpinism that is Voytek Kurtyka. His climbs soar beyond the page even as his tangled character anchors a vision few have shared. It is almost as though McDonald comprehends the man better than he does himself.

 

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Bernadette McDonald has outdone even herself with this stunning portrayal of the reclusive visionary who turned mountain climbing into an art form. A mighty impressive work. Bravo!

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McDonald has a magical knack for honing in on what makes climbers tick, and she definitely unravels threads from the enigma that is Kurtyka in her book.

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Climbing legends don't come more legendary than Voytek Kurtyka, nor their biographers more diligent, stylish and informed than Bernadette McDonald. This book's her best yet - an enthralling account of a life focused around audacious ascents in the World's Greater Ranges by the man they nicknamed "The Animal". Proof here that animals have souls, and only readers without one could fail to be impressed!

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"Bernadette Mcdonald’s book takes us into the soul of a spiritual climber who sees in mountaineering a manifestation of nature in its purest form, a creative drive he calls ‘Crea’. Art of Freedom is a brilliant portrait of one of the cleanest climbers of our time."

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This biography of the enigmatic Voytek Kurtyka is intimate and poised, revealing much that we did not know about Kurtyka, but never dispelling the mystery that surrounds him. Voytek’s life has been a quest to find a language to communicate with mountains. This story of his life proves that mountaineering can itself be a form of art, a state of being that perhaps only Kurtyka has achieved.

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Many years ago my friend Alex MacIntyre told me stories about his climbing partner Voytek Kurtyka, and their fast, light ascents of big walls in the high Himalaya. Voytek seemed a near mythical figure, for whom such intense climbing was an art form and a spiritual endeavor. He shunned publicity, and for decades remained a ‘climber’s climber’, little known outside the inner sanctum of mountaineering. With this graceful biography, Bernadette McDonald now introduces Voytek to a wide audience. She creates a 3D picture of a remarkable alpinist, following the arc of his astonishing life and sharing with us his climbs, his writings, his complexities and his wisdom. Art of Freedom is an important addition to mountaineering history and literature, and is sure to become a classic.

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I highly recommend this book. Buy it now and read it. Put it on your Christmas list for your friends. Perhaps give it to your budding climber or your student graduating high school or college next spring. McDonald crafted a significant biography of Voytek Kurtyka that has enough lessons of success, failure, and maintaining joy through it all that goes beyond climbing and can apply to how we can all live our lives.

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This book tells both the history and the future of alpine climbing. Art of Freedom reveals profound lessons about climbing, deeply rooted in romanticism, blood, sweat and toil, as reflected by one of it’s greatest protagonists. Voytek Kurtyka is a legend, in part for his many brilliant climbs, both attempted and accomplished. But even more so for his intellect, his self-reflection, and his growth from each experience—both the tragic and the triumphant. Here, for the first time, we have full access to his travails and his musings. An absolute gem of a book.

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Art of Freedom is a brilliant work of insight, not only into the life of the great alpinist, but also at the questions that compel us to the mountains in the first place; a work of art that will provoke and inform discussions on the potential transformative power of climbing for decades to come.

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Polish climbers, particularly the pre-perestroika generation, hold a special place in the history of alpinism. Collectively they climbed more peaks in better style with less gear. And they knew how to suffer. We looked up to them, we aspired to be half as tough as they were. One climber, Voytek, was a world unto his own. His physical capability was legend, yet what set him part was a hidden mysticism. We knew it was there. In Art of Freedom Bernadette follows Voytek's thread as young man coming of age in post-war, communist Poland to the greater ranges. We learn of the intellectual drive that fueled these great ascents. Regardless of your background, from the armchair to the alpine suffer artist, there is something that will resonate with being human, living by your ideals and enjoying life in its purest form.

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With the accuracy of a musician and the sensitivity of a writer, Bernadette McDonald unveils the myth of the great Voytek. Joining him on the journey through his remarkable mountaineering opus she collects forgotten notes from the steep faces of the Himalaya, the granite spires of Troll and Trango, and composes them into a magnificent symphony.

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In Freedom Climbers, McDonald located the great Polish Himalayan climbers, including Voytek Kurtyka in the complex political and mountaineering contexts of Cold War climbing. In Art of Freedom, she focuses on offering a compelling account of the inner life of Kurtyka, one of the greatest climbers in history. McDonald pulls no punches in sharing her insights into Kurtyka’s complicated relationships with partners, the law, climbing goals, risk and lifestyle, resulting in a picture of a truly remarkable man. Everyone interested in what drives a man capable of accomplishing some of the greatest climbs ever attempted will find this a very rewarding read.

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"When you settle in to read a biography about a man’s lifetime pursuit with his own personal art form, it’s a bonus when the author possesses the skill and talent to create her own work of art. That is exactly what Bernadette McDonald has accomplished with ... Art of Freedom: The Life and Climbs of Voytek Kurtyka."

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"Rendered with both élan and consummate understanding, no one seems better equipped to write a biography of the world's most reclusive but remarkable climber, a fact even the fiercely furtive, famously cerebral, notoriously interview-shy Kurtyka accepted in entrusting her to lay bare his life."