Raynor Winn

Raynor Winn (born 1962) is a British long-distance walker and writer; her first book The Salt Path was a Sunday Times bestseller in 2018.

Life
Winn and her husband Moth, who was diagnosed with corticobasal degeneration, became homeless after a business deal with a friend went wrong and decided to walk the 630 mi South West Coast Path.

Her autobiographical first book, The Salt Path, at once a memoir, a piece of nature writing, and a travel book, was shortlisted for the 2018 Wainwright Prize, and the 2018 Costa Book Awards in the biography category. The judges described it as "An absolutely brilliant story that needs to be told about the human capacity to endure and keep putting one foot in front of another." In May 2019 The Salt Path won the inaugural RSL Christopher Bland Prize. In September 2019 it was the number one bestselling book in UK independent bookstores. In 2023, a film adaptation of the same name began filming with Gillian Anderson and Jason Isaacs in the lead roles.

Winn also writes about nature, homelessness and wild camping. Her second book The Wild Silence was published by Michael Joseph (a subsidiary of Penguin Books) in September 2020. It was shortlisted for the 2021 Wainwright Prize for Nature Writing.

Winn's third book Landlines (2022) describes a 1000 mile journey with her husband along the 200 mile Cape Wrath Trail in north-west Scotland, described as "the toughest and wildest Britain has to offer", and onwards through Scotland and England to the South West Coast Path.

In April 2024 the couple set out to walk the Thames Path to raise awareness and funds for CBD. Winn then took part in the 2024 London Marathon, completing in a time of 7hr 52min 7sec.