Synopses & Reviews
At the age of 24, Kira Salak undertook a three-month solo journey across Papua, New Guinea.
Four Corners, her account of that trip, is an extraordinary travel memoir. Amid the breathtaking landscapes and wildlife, Salak traversed this island, known as the last frontier of adventure travel, by dugout canoe and on foot. Along the way, Salak stayed in a village where people still practiced cannibalism behind the backs of the missionaries, met the leader of the OPM, the separatist guerrilla movement opposing the Indonesian occupation of Western New Guinea, and undertook an epic trek through the jungle. Four Corners is also an interior journey as Salak explores her dysfunctional family past, and the demons that drive her to experience situations that most of us can barely imagine.
Reading more like a thriller than a travel book, Four Corners is compulsive armchair travel at its very best.
About the Author
Kira Salak was born in Illinois in 1971. She regularly travels and writes for National Geographic and its Adventure magazine. She was the first person to canoe solo 600 miles down the River Niger to Timbuktu, and her recent story about the civil war and genocide in Congo was nominated for America’s prestigious 2003 National Magazine Awards.