White

By: Sylvain Tesson, Christine Gutman (Translator)

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Hardcover | 2 January 2026

At a Glance

Hardcover
180 Pages

Dimensions(cm)
22.2 x 14.6 x 2.4

Hardcover

RRP $41.95

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When Sylvain Tesson left the colourful yellow houses of the French Riviera for a ski trek across the Alps with his friend, a high-altitude mountain guide, he didn't know what exactly awaited him. The trek would turn into an extraordinary adventure.

Over the course of four years they ascended high into the Alps in winter, following the curve of the mountains from the Mediterranean to the Adriatic, immersing themselves in a strange white world made entirely of snow. In the bitter cold and overlooked by an empty sky, only the effort of moving forward, one difficult stride at a time, separated the days from one another. And as they trudged onwards, the never-ending white of the high Alps cancelled out all feelings – hope, fear, memory and regret.

What did he stand to gain by inflicting this ordeal on himself? This was no ordinary mountain trek: it was a search for communion with the magic substance of the White.

Also available as an audiobook.

Industry Reviews

"Sylvain Tesson is more a word artist than a nonfiction writer. He writes with the nuanced ear of a great novelist, the soul of a poet, and the urgency of a messenger. White is both journey and pilgrimage, part travelogue, part prayer."
Carl Safina, ecologist and author

"A journal from the edge of the world, laced with witty, poetic observations and exquisitely graceful turns of phrase."
Le Monde des Livres

"A vertiginous immersion in the secret beauty of snow-capped summits, a journey as poetic as it is spiritual."
La Grande Librairie

"The French writer Sylvian Tesson feels anxiety lilt, bitterness vanish and travel transform into prayer in the course of a ski journey across the Alps."
Sara Wheeler, The Spectator

"Magnificent"
Justin Marozzi, The Spectator Best Books of the Year 2025

"Lyrical... Readers will be swept up in this sly intellectual adventure."
Publishers Weekly

"Sylvain Tesson is a fan of extreme adventures testing his mental and physical endurance. That urge beckons him toward the mountains… Like Herman Melville's Captain Ahab in pursuit of his whale, Mr. Tesson is drawn to 'The White,' his mythic name for mountain snowscapes."
The Wall Street Journal

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