Mount Ararat in Turkey is where, as biblical tradition has it, Noah’s Ark ran aground and God made his covenant with mankind. Now it stands astride the fault-line between religion and science, a geographical, political and cultural crossroads, bound up with the centuries-old history of warfare between different cultures in this region. Frank Westerman takes a pilgrimage from the mountain’s foot to its highest slopes, meeting along the way geologists, priests and an expedition in search of the Ark’s remains, as well as a Russian astronaut who observes that ‘there is something between heaven and earth about which we humans know nothing’.
Ararat is a dazzling, highly personal book about science, religion and all that lies between, by one of Europe’s most celebrated young writers.