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: nature writing

Shubhangi Swarup
Latitudes of Longing

When a book can make you look up at the sky once in a while, pause, draw in your breath, and gaze at the rustling leaves of the tree outside your window, what does it mean? That it is not gripping enough, or rather I believe that it wants everything around you to grip you completely.

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Jessica J. Lee
Dispersals

Jessica J. Lee’s third book, Dispersals, On Plants, Borders and Belonging, consists of fourteen personal essays about plants crossing borders and putting down roots in new places. Lee chooses several trees, shrubs and algae, which hold meaning in her own life, to engage with their history and journeys into different parts of the world. In doing so, she questions under what circumstances species are considered either cosmopolitan or invasive.

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Nina Mingya Powles
Small Bodies of Water

In her collection of essays, we move with Powles between London, where she currently lives, Shanghai, China and Aotearoa-New Zealand. She talks about growing up in Wellington with the constant fear of a major earthquake, how she prepares her own tofu during the coronavirus lockdown, and her connection to the kōwhai tree.  

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Alexis Pauline Gumbs
Undrowned

Undrowned: Black Feminist Lessons from Marine Mammals by Alexis Pauline Gumbs is one of the strangest books I have read recently – and I mean that in an extremely positive way. I admit I had to get into it first, but then this unusual way of talking about dolphins, whales, seals and co. in connection with Black experiences won me over.

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Ecocriticism and Postcolonialism: When Land Remembers

Ecocriticism is a concept with an interdisciplinary approach that emerged in the United States to examine the different ways in which people imagine human relationships to nature and the environment, and how they portray it in books, films and works of art. Escpecially in combination with postcolonialism, ecocriticism offers incredible potential for analysis.

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Aimee Nezhukumatathil
World of Wonders

In her recently published essay volume World of Wonders, Aimee Nezhukumatathil frames moments in her life that have shaped her, with anecdotes about animals and plants. In this way, she conveys how wondrous and impressive flora and fauna can be, and how much they have to teach.

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