Never reach the peak

What does it mean to venture into the mountains and never reach the summit? In his book, Paolo Cognetti tells the story of a journey driven by the desire for self-discovery, of circling around the meaning of one's own pilgrimage, of escape and return, and of the effort to let oneself be physically permeated by the landscape. Written as a literary travel diary, Never Reach the Summit captures his experiences from an expedition to Dolpo, Nepal, which he undertook in late 2017 as a forty-year-old coming to terms with the fact that he has definitively crossed the ridge of youth and there is no path back.