Vertebrate Publishing has this week signed the UK and Ireland rights to Bernadette McDonald’s Freedom Climbers, winner of the 2011 Boardman Tasker Prize for Mountain Literature, and the Grand Prize at the 2011 Banff Mountain Book Awards.

Described by the Boardman Tasker judges as “one of the most important mountaineering books to be written for many years”, Freedom Climbers tells the story of the extraordinary Polish adventurers who emerged from under the blanket of oppression following the Second World War to become the world’s leading Himalayan climbers.

Although they lived in a war-ravaged landscape, with seemingly no hope of creating a meaningful life, these curious, motivated and skilled mountaineers built their own free-market economy under the very noses of their Communist bosses and climbed their way to liberation.

Vertebrate’s Publishing Manager John Coefield commented: “Freedom Climbers is a meticulously researched and beautifully crafted book, of the highest quality in this genre – a worthy winner of this year’s Boardman Tasker and a must read for all climbers or anyone with so much as a passing interest in mountaineering history. We’re absolutely delighted to add it to our expanding mountaineering literature list.”

Freedom Climbers was first published in North America in September 2011 by Canadian publisher Rocky Mountain Books. It will be published in the UK and Ireland in February in paperback and eBook by Vertebrate Publishing. 

Read an interview with author Bernadette McDonald on the National Geographic website.