Raynor Winn (born 1962) is a British long-distance walker and writer; her first book ''The Salt Path'' was a ''Sunday Times'' bestseller in 2018. Winn and her husband Moth, who was diagnosed with

corticobasal degeneration Corticobasal degeneration (CBD) is a rare neurodegenerative disease involving the cerebral cortex and the basal ganglia. CBD symptoms typically begin in people from 50 to 70 years of age, and the average disease duration is six years. It is chara ...

, became homeless after a business deal with a friend went wrong and decided to walk the

South West Coast Path The South West Coast Path is England's longest waymarked long-distance footpath and a National Trail. It stretches for , running from Minehead in Somerset, along the coasts of Devon and Cornwall, to Poole Harbour in Dorset. Because it rises a ...

. ''The Salt Path'' was shortlisted for the 2018

Wainwright Prize The Wainwright Prize is a literary prize awarded annually for the best work of general outdoors, nature and UK-based travel writing. In 2020 it was split into the Wainwright Prize for UK nature writing and the Wainwright Prize for writing on globa ...

, and the

2018 Costa Book Awards The Costa Book Awards were a set of annual literary awards recognising English-language books by writers based in UK and Ireland. Originally named the Whitbread Book Awards from 1971 to 2005 after its first sponsor, the Whitbread company, then ...

in the biography category. The judges described it as "An absolutely brilliant story that needs to be told about the human capacity to endure and keep putting one foot in front of another." In May 2019 ''The Salt Path'' won the inaugural

RSL Christopher Bland Prize The RSL Christopher Bland Prize was inaugurated by the Royal Society of Literature to encourage the work of older writers. It is awarded annually to an author of a fiction or non-fiction book who was first published when aged 50 or over. The prize ...

. In September 2019 it was the number one bestselling book in UK independent bookstores. Winn also writes about nature, homelessness and wild camping. Her second book ''The Wild Silence'' was published by Michael Joseph (a subsidiary of

Penguin Books Penguin Books is a British publishing, publishing house. It was co-founded in 1935 by Allen Lane with his brothers Richard and John, as a line of the publishers The Bodley Head, only becoming a separate company the following year.Cape Wrath Trail Cape Wrath Trail is a hiking route that runs through the Scottish Highlands and along the west coast of Scotland. It is approximately 200 miles (321 km) in length and is considered to be one of the most challenging long distance walks in the ...

in north-west Scotland, described as "the toughest and wildest Britain has to offer", and onwards through Scotland and England to the

Selected publications

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References

External links

Raynor Winn interviewed on the BBC's Woman's Hour radio programme 34:43 - 42:00
Living people 21st-century British writers Writers from Cornwall 1962 births Walkers of the United Kingdom {{UK-writer-stub