Echoing Keats’s famous ode, the book is punctuated by placid country scenes of grain being harvested, birds flying south, days growing shorter and nights longer and colder. So familiar is this picture of autumnal transformation that readers are easily lulled into a false sense of comfort. But it slowly becomes […]
Read MoreArticles by: Mary Woodbury
Limbo: A Novel about Jamaica, Esther Figueroa
Flora Smith, Jamaican scientist and head of tiny NGO Environment Now, dedicates her life to getting Jamaicans to care about the natural environment. At the opening of Limbo, Flora is confronted by the nagging reality of not having enough money to keep her organization afloat. When sand is stolen from […]
Read MoreBackyard Wildlife – Planting Trees
Back to Series A lot of stuff has happened since last month. Between May and June, the black flies have come out in big numbers. Crickets began to sing at night–a sound that I love and which I grew up with but never heard during my years on the west […]
Read MoreWaste Tide, Chen Qiufan
Click here to return to the series In June, we travel to a fictional place in China called Silicon Isle, based on the real town of Guiyu, in the Chaoyang district of Guangdong province. Author Chen Qiufan takes us there with his novel Waste Tide. I am grateful to Chen […]
Read MoreSix Spellmakers of Dorabji Street, Shabnam Minwalla
With Nivi Mallik’s arrival at Cosy Castle, the rules start to change. The bimbli trees become the hang-out spot for two giggly girls and the driveway is a permanent cricket pitch for the boys. But the happy times are soon ended by the ‘dragon’ and the ‘crone’, who gang up […]
Read MoreTiger Boy, Mitali Perkins
When a tiger cub escapes from a nature reserve near Neel’s island village, the rangers and villagers hurry to find her before the cub’s anxious mother follows suit and endangers them all. Mr. Gupta, a rich newcomer to the island, is also searching—he wants to sell the cub’s body parts […]
Read MoreEnvironmental Fiction Survey
I invite you to check out this survey that gauges interest, social impacts, and trends of eco-fiction readers. Please participate and share with friends, family, students, and colleagues who love to read books! The survey is here if you have a Google account and here if you do not have […]
Read MoreInterview with Lovis Geier
Women Working in Nature and the Arts I recently had the chance to discover a new voice in the field of ecofiction: Lovis Geier’s, who runs the YouTube channel Ecofictology. Lovis is perfect for bringing the field of ecological fiction to a visual perspective, for she is knowledgeable, witty, and […]
Read MorePotiki, Patricia Grace
‘Destroy the land and sea, we destroy ourselves.’ On the remote coast of New Zealand, at the curve that binds land and sea, a small Maori community live, work, fish, play and tell stories of their ancestors. This novel was republished in February 2020 by Penguin Classics and was featured […]
Read MoreThe Unpassing, Chia-Chia Lin
With flowing prose that evokes the terrifying beauty of the Alaskan wilderness, Lin explores the fallout after the loss of a child and the way in which a family is forced to grieve in a place that doesn’t yet feel like home. Emotionally raw and subtly suspenseful, The Unpassing is […]
Read MoreSharks in the Time of Saviours, Kawai Strong Washburn
In 1994 in Kailua-Kona, Hawaii, seven-year-old Nainoa Flores is saved from drowning by a shiver of sharks. His family, struggling to make ends meet amidst the collapse of the sugar cane industry, hails his rescue as a sign of favour from ancient Hawaiian gods. Goodreads Reviews Back to GoodReads
Read MoreGod Shot, Chelsea Bieker
Drought has settled on the town of Peaches, California. The area of the Central Valley where fourteen-year-old Lacey May and her alcoholic mother live was once an agricultural paradise. Now it’s an environmental disaster, a place of cracked earth and barren raisin farms. In their desperation, residents have turned to […]
Read MoreSassafrass, Cypress & Indigo, Ntozake Shange
As with many ecofeminist novels, the structure is not linear and contains many asides, recipes, spells, letters and other ephemera. Shange explores the relationship between the main characters and their homeland, South Carolina, as well as their more distant connection to Africa through the Black Arts Movement. –Carnegie Library Goodreads […]
Read MoreMichael McClure, Selections from Touching the Edge
Author: © Michael McClure Republished from Jack Magazine (2000-2010) Issue 1–Selections from Touching the Edge: Dharma Devotions from the Hummingbird Sangha. Permissions from the author and acquisitions editor Michael Rothenberg. Originally Published in 1999 by Shambhala Publications, Inc. Type: Poetry Back to the Dragonfly Library From Rice Roaring 22 26 […]
Read MorePoems by Luvuyo Mkangelwa
Author: © Luvuyo Mkangelwa Republished from Jack Magazine (2000-2010) Issue 5–the South Africa poetry feature–with permission of acquisitions editor Michael Rothenberg Type: Poetry Back to the Dragonfly Library The Martyrs’ Speak (21 March 2002) I fell for you, bit the dust and bled the stone that left me with a […]
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