Voytek Kurtyka’s biography Art of Freedom long listed for Banff Mountain Book Competition

• Thursday 21 September 2017

Congratulations to Bernadette McDonald whose book Art of Freedom, The Life and Climbs of Voytek Kurtyka has been long listed for the 2017 Banff Mountain Book Competition.

The biography is one of five titles long listed for the Mountain Literature Award from a total of 171 books submitted for the competition’s eight award categories.

With a cash prize of $16,000 awarded annually, the competition is internationally recognised and celebrates mountain literature in all its forms. The category award winners will be announced in mid-October, and the Grand Prize will be revealed at an awards presentation on Thursday 2 November as part of the forty-second Banff Mountain Film and Book Festival.   

Published by Rocky Mountain Books in Canada and the USA and Vertebrate Publishing in the UK, Art of Freedom has also been shortlisted for this year's Boardman Tasker Award for Mountain Literature. 

In 2011, McDonald scooped both the Grand Prize at the Banff Mountain Book Festival and the Boardman Tasker Award for Mountain Literature with her book Freedom Climbers.