in 2001, Terzani (journalist ,writer and reporter) deals with his illness, a stomach cancer which eventually led to his death in 2004, but not before he had travelled and searched through countries and civilizations, looking for a cure and for a new vision of life. Terzani spent the early 2000s (decade) in confinement on the mountainous Himalaya's region, in a small hut that he rented in order to meditate and work on his books. He only seldom visited his family in Italy, but had to desist from his isolation when his sickness advanced too much. He returned to Italy, spending the last months of his life with his wife and grown son in Orsigna, a little village in the Apennine mountains in the province of Pistoia that he considered "his true, last love".
Terzani died on 28 July 2004, aged 66. His last memories are recorded in an interview for Italian television entitled "Anam", an Indian word that literally means "the one with no name", an appellative he gained during an experience in an ashram in India.