Andy Merrifield 
The Wisdom of Donkeys 

In this enchanting book,
Andrew Merrifield sets out on a journey of the soul with a friend’s donkey, through the crumbling ruins and spectacular vistas of southern France’s Haute-Auvergne. Along the way the understated nobility of Gribouille, his humble donkey companion, allows him to confront himself as well as to consider the larger mysteries of life. As Merrifield contemplates literature, science, truth, beauty, and the universality of nature amid the French countryside, Gribouille surprises him with his subtle wisdom, reminding him time and again that enlightenment is all around us if we but seek it. Traveling with Merrifield and Gribouille, we’re reminded of the exquisite benefits of nature, passive adventuring, and wild spaces.

Over de auteur

Andy Merrifield was born in Liverpool, England, in 1960. He attended the city’s Quarry Bank School, immortalized by alumni John Lennon and his band The Quarrymen. Merrifield left school at the age of 16 and for a decade did routine office jobs, traveled in America, and took up long distance running. In the mid-1980s, he discovered a passion for books and enrolled as a ‘second-chance’ student at Liverpool Polytechnic, reading philosophy, sociology and geography. He then went on to receive a Ph D from the University of Oxford in 1993. Afterward, he taught at the University of Southampton, at the University of London, and at Clark University in Massachusetts, fulfilling a longtime desire to live in the United States. Merrifield moved to New York in 2000, a city that had captivated him since a debut visit there in 1970.

In 2003, fed up with academia and weary of city living, Merrifield relocated to a poor, remote region of rural France. There, amid extinct volcanoes, farm animals, and wildlife, he encountered the peaceable world of the donkey, inspiring him to take a long walk with one chocolate-brown called Gribouille. The
Wisdom of Donkeys: Finding Tranquility in a Chaotic World recounts this contemplative voyage of discovery.

In May 2007, Merrifield’s daughter, Lili-Rose, was born and he now divides his time between child-minding, writing books, and riding his mountain bike in the nearby hills. Merrifield is author of four previous books: two scholarly texts on urbanism, and biographies of French philosophers Guy Debord and Henri Lefebvre. He is currently at work on another book,
The Color of Wheat: Nine-Months with a Fox and the Little Prince, centered on Saint-Exupéry’s tale of the Little Prince, expectant parenthood, and recent encounters with Auvergne foxes.