Colin Thubron is one of our most distinguished travel writers, and one of our most private. In his new book,¬†To a Mountain in Tibet, he allows the personal to break cover in his prose for the first time. Make a ‘secular pilgrimage’ to the holy mountain Kailas, his mind drifts constantly to memories of his childhood, his sister, and his mother’s recent death, and he finds himself overwhelmed with a longing ‘to touch hands that I know have grown cold’. He talks to biographer and novelist Victoria Glendinning about his journey to the world’s most sacred mountain, about loss and grief, and about whether a journey can ever be a cure.

Recorded on Monday 28th March 2011.