Author Talk: Satyajit Das

Join us for an author talk with Satyajit Das, a former banker who has become an advocate for eco-tourism. He will be discussing his book Wild Quests.

About Satyajit Das

Satyajit Das is a financier who was named in 2014 by Bloomberg as among the fifty most influential people in financial markets. He has held senior positions in banks and industry and now works as a consultant to investors and corporations globally.

He has published several key reference works on finance and wrote Traders, Guns & Money (2006), Extreme Money (2011) and A Banquet of Consequences (2015, updated 2021). He is also the author (with Jade Novakovic) of In Search of the Pangolin: The Accidental Eco-Tourist (2006).

Satyajit Das appeared in Charles Ferguson’s 2010 Oscar-winning documentary Inside Job. He has spoken at the Sydney and Melbourne writers festivals, Adelaide Festival of Ideas and Sydney Festival of Dangerous Ideas.

About Wild Quests

Thirty years ago, two trips to iconic destinations, Africa and the Antarctic, profoundly changed Satyajit Das’s life. Ecotourism – watching wildlife in nature – became his gravitational centre. Wild Quests is a literal and metaphorical record of these travels.

Over time, during his encounters with remarkable wild animals in continents across the world, he came to question the underlying preoccupations and tensions in humans’ complex and troubled relationship with nature. What lies at the heart of our fascination with wild animals and our attempts to pursue an ‘experience’? During a time of ecological emergency and habitat destruction, what responsibility does the ecotourist have to the natural world?

Brimming with passion, wit and candour, Wild Quests combines travelogue, history and science to provide penetrating insights into animals, humans and the future of the planet.

Reviews of Wild Quests

"An eye-opening, honest examination of ecotourism, from the heights (birdwatching) to the depths (whale watching) and everywhere in between" Tony Wheeler

"Full of terrific insights, vivaciously written and gorgeously illustrated, Wild Quests combines enormous passion for wild animals with some telling truths about humanity’s wilful failure as guardians of our natural world" Phillip Adams AO

About this event

Better Read Than Dead bookshop will be selling copies of Wild Quests on the night. 

5:30pm - Light refreshments

6-7pm - Author talk

Browse and reserve books by Satyajit Das here.