羅伯特·麥剋法倫（Robert Macfarlane）齣生於1976年，是劍橋的院士，他的研究和寫作領域側重於自然與文學的關係、二戰之後的英美小說、當代詩歌和維多利亞時期文學等等。他的“行走文學三部麯”展現瞭當代旅行寫作新的走嚮和所能達到的高度。其中首部《心事如山》獲得瞭“衛報首作奬”、“泰晤士報年度最佳青年作傢奬”和“薩默賽特·毛姆奬”；第二部作品《荒野之境》獲得或被提名有將近十個奬項，由BBC製成紀錄片。《古道》2012年齣版，廣受好評，不斷齣現在各種“年度好書”的推介中，獲得“塞繆爾·約翰遜奬”提名。2013年他受邀擔任布剋奬評委會主席。麥剋法倫的散文機智博雅，精巧而不晦澀，《格蘭塔》前主編弗裏曼稱他為當代最好的行走文學作傢。

The "Old Ways" is the stunning new book by acclaimed nature writer Robert Macfarlane Shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson prize 2012. In "The Old Ways" Robert Macfarlane sets off from his Cambridge home to follow the ancient tracks, holloways, drove-roads and sea paths that form part of a vast network of routes criss-crossing the British landscape and its waters, and connecting them to the continents beyond. The result is an immersive, enthralling exploration of the ghosts and voices that haunt old paths, of the stories our tracks keep and tell, of pilgrimage and ritual, and of songlines and their singers. Above all this is a book about people and place: about walking as a reconnoitre inwards, and the subtle ways in which we are shaped by the landscapes through which we move. Told in Macfarlane's distinctive and celebrated voice, the book folds together natural history, cartography, geology, archaeology and literature. His tracks take him from the chalk downs of England to the bird-islands of the Scottish northwest, and from the disputed territories of Palestine to the sacred landscapes of Spain and the Himalayas. Along the way he walks stride for stride with a 5000-year-old man near Liverpool, follows the 'deadliest path in Britain', sails an open boat out into the Atlantic at night, and crosses paths with walkers of many kinds - wanderers, wayfarers, pilgrims, guides, shamans, poets, trespassers and devouts. He discovers that paths offer not just means of traversing space, but also of feeling, knowing and thinking. The old ways lead us unexpectedly to the new, and the voyage out is always a voyage inwards. "Really do love it. He has a rare physical intelligence and affords total immersion in place, elements and the passage of time: wonderful". (Antony Gormley). "A marvellous marriage of scholarship, imagination and evocation of place. I always feel exhilarated after reading Macfarlane". (Penelope Lively). "Macfarlane immerses himself in regions we may have thought familiar, resurrecting them newly potent and sometimes beautifully strange. In a moving achievement, he returns our heritage to us". (Colin Thubron). "Every Robert MacFarlane book offers beautiful writing, bold journeys...With its global reach and mysterious Sebaldian structure, this is MacFarlane's most important book yet". (David Rothenberg, author of "Survival of the Beautiful" and "Thousand Mile Song"). "Luminous, possessing a seemingly paradoxical combination of the dream-like and the hyper-vigilant, "The Old Ways" is, as with all of Macfarlane's work, a magnificent read. Each sentence can carry astonishing discovery". (Rick Bass, US novelist and nature writer). "The "Old Ways" confirms Robert Macfarlane's reputation as one of the most eloquent and observant of contemporary writers about nature". ("Scotland on Sunday"). "Sublime writing ...sets the imagination tingling...Macfarlane's way of writing [is] free, exploratory, rambling and haphazard but resourceful, individual, following his own whims, and laying an irresistible trail for readers to follow". ("Sunday Times"). "Macfarlane relishes wild, as well as old, places. He writes about both beautifully...I love to read Macfarlane". (John Sutherland, "Financial Times"). "Read this and it will be impossible to take an unremarkable walk again". ("Metro"). Robert Macfarlane won the "Guardian" First Book Award, the Somerset Maugham Award, and the "Sunday Times" Young Writer of the Year Award for his first book, "Mountains of the Mind" (2003). His second, "The Wild Places" (2007), was similarly celebrated, winning three prizes and being shortlisted for six more. Both books were adapted for television by the BBC. He is a Fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge.