Orient Two Walks at the Edge of the Human

Join renowned author David Hinton on two walks into the wild beauty and archaeological ruins of the desert Southwest—and to the edges of consciousness and Taoist cosmology that he explores on the way.

In this poetic odyssey of nature writing that blurs the line between observer and landscape, Hinton’s project is nothing less than to map our place in the cosmos and awaken to our interconnectedness with the wild spontaneity of the natural world. Like Henry David Thoreau and other great literary walkers, Hinton joins his profound philosophical worldview—informed by a lifetime of translating the Taoist and Ch’an Buddhist masterpieces of classical Chinese literature—with his keen eye for the slightest of nature’s details. As he explores sweeping desert landscapes and the crumbling ruins of the humans who once lived there, Hinton simultaneously investigates the nature of sight and perception, tracing the movements of consciousness and the very roots of language.

DAVID HINTON has published numerous books of poetry and
essays and many translations of ancient Chinese poetry and philosophy—all informed by an abiding interest in deep ecological thinking. This widely acclaimed work has earned Hinton a Guggenheim Fellowship, numerous fellowships from NEA and NEH, and both of the major awards given for poetry translation in the United States: the Landon Translation Award (Academy of American Poets) and the PEN American Translation Award. Most recently, Hinton received a lifetime achievement award by the American Academy of Arts and Letters.