Katharine B. Soper

Katharine B. Soper first walked the Camino Francés solo in 2002 at age fifty-seven. She has since returned again and again on the Camino Francés, the Le Puy route, the Portuguese Camino, the Portuguese Coastal Camino, and the Via de la Plata, and has also volunteered with pilgrims in St.-Jean-Pied-de-Port and Conques. Those years on the road, and in service to other walkers, shaped both her understanding of pilgrimage and the memoir that grew from it.

A lawyer and professor of French, Soper brings to her writing both intellectual precision and deep human curiosity. She writes about pilgrimage not as escape, but as lived experience: demanding, companionable, reflective, and quietly transformative. She lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan, with her husband Philip, and treasures time with their adult children and four granddaughters.