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I Am Here
  • Published: 21 January 2027
  • ISBN: 9781529994803
  • Imprint: Vintage Digital
  • Format: Audio Download
  • RRP: $55.00
Categories:

I Am Here

On Staying Alive

Formats & editions
EBook
21 Jan 2027
Audiobook
21 Jan 2027
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This is an extraordinary true story of survival set in the most extreme mental and physical landscapes: a journey through total mental collapse, the depths of loss and the beauty and danger of high mountains. A future classic for readers of The Outrun, I Am, I Am, I Am and H is for Hawk

This is a true story of survival set in the most extreme mental and physical landscapes: a journey through total breakdown, the depths of loss and the beauty and danger of high mountains

In her early thirties, Kate Armstrong was on top of the world: building a future with the love of her life, thriving in a fast-moving career and climbing spectacular mountain peaks. Then, out of the blue, she had a shattering breakdown, fell into near-fatal addiction and almost destroyed her marriage.

A decade later, she’s hit by catastrophe of a whole different order. Unable to find her way forward, she turns to her past experiences for lessons in how to survive. Then, the mountains grounded her. Now, they become her salvation.

I Am Here ranges between high-altitude Alpine ice peaks and psychiatric hospitals, the wilds of Scotland and basement AA meetings, London backstreets and the fierce beauty of the remote Himalaya. It is a love story. It is a testament to those who care for and guide us. Above all it demonstrates the wisdom that can come from deep pain – and how it can help us through whatever lies ahead.

The mountains of rock and ice were so much more straightforward than the mountains of my mind
  • Published: 21 January 2027
  • ISBN: 9781529994803
  • Imprint: Vintage Digital
  • Format: Audio Download
  • RRP: $55.00
Categories:

About the author

Kate Armstrong

Kate Armstrong is a writer and avid amateur mountaineer who has climbed across the UK, Europe and the Himalaya. She has survived extremes of all kinds and come through wiser. She spent many years as a management consultant, completed a PhD on John Donne and holds a Creative Writing MFA from Birkbeck. Kate currently lives in London.
KA

Praise for I Am Here

A landmark memoir with the power to stun, horrify and inspire -- often within a single sentence. Brilliantly written and intricately constructed, it is a testament to deepening self-knowledge and the brute will to survive. An amazing, unique book

TOBY LITT, author of Patience

Gripping... Searingly honest, brutally real... Lessons for all of us are woven into Armstrong's beautiful prose

MANNI COE, author of Sunday Times bestseller brother.do.you.love.me

Armstrong’s visceral descriptions of scaling peaks and unravelling minds establish her as a writer to watch out for. Hers is a voice that refuses to look away, even when the terrain turns treacherous. I was gripped

LEMN SISSAY

An extraordinary book

LOUISA YOUNG, author of The Golden Hours and You Left Early

Kate Armstrong's prose is lucid and mesmerising, and her story completely devastating. And yet, I felt strangely emboldened after reading I Am Here. Days later, it is still on my mind

EMILY CHAPPELL, author of Where There's A Will

An extraordinary story... propulsive and intoxicating... I could not put it down

LILY DUNN, author of Sins of My Father

I thought I knew what it meant for climbing literature to embody 'courage'. Then I read this bold, brilliant book and expanded my definition: I Am Here is rare and remarkable

HELEN MORT, author of A Line Above the Sky

Kate Armstrong isn't just a good writer: she's the survivor of all survivors, and she sets us at the heart of the struggle between the psyche and its attempts to hide from itself. Utterly involving, moving and brilliant

M. JOHN HARRISON, Booker-shortlisted author of The End of Everything