In November 2017 Benedict Allen found himself at the centre of a media frenzy. He’d been in Papua New Guinea (PNG) on a one-man expedition and hadn’t been heard of for weeks. Declaring him ‘lost’, several papers turned on him, accusing him of being overprivileged and imperialistic. One even suggested the whole thing was a stunt. It didn’t help that he was picked up by a helicopter, sent by the Daily Mail. This was a story the paper’s rivals wanted to spoil.
Explorer is Allen’s account of that journey and how it all began. It’s no excuse or apology, but is written with anger and passion. The story begins in adolescence, with a boy who was idealistic, stubborn and determined to travel the world alone and in his own way. It seems he was searching for a variant of perfection, and the Garden of Eden is a recurring theme. Later in life he would bridle at his youthful obsession, but by the age of 22 Allen had traversed hundreds of miles of the Amazonian rainforest.
We hear the clatter of homemade guns and we’re right there among the leeches and thorns of Papua New Guinea
Over the next decade he was constantly travelling, at the ends of the Earth.
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