My Life in Sea Creatures

My Life in Sea Creatures

A young queer science writer’s reflections on identity and the ocean

Summary

***AMAZON BEST BOOK OF DECEMBER***
***A TIME MUST-READ BOOK OF THE YEAR***
***LA TIMES BOOK PRIZE WINNER***

A young queer science writer on some of the ocean's strangest creatures and what they can teach us about human empathy and survival


'A miraculous, transcendental book' ED YONG
'An astonishing debut' GUARDIAN

As a mixed Chinese and white non-binary writer working in a largely white, male field, science journalist Sabrina Imbler has always been drawn to the mystery of life in the sea, and particularly to creatures living in hostile or remote environments.

Each essay in their debut collection profiles one such creature: the mother octopus who starves herself while watching over her eggs, the Chinese sturgeon whose migration route has been decimated by pollution and dams, the bizarre Bobbitt worm (named after Lorena) and other uncanny creatures lurking in the deep ocean, far below where the light reaches. Imbler's debut weaves the wonders of marine biology with stories of their own family and coming of age, implicitly connecting endangered sea life to marginalised human communities and asking how they and we adapt, survive and care for each other.

This far-reaching, unique collection shatters our preconceptions about the sea and what it means to survive.

'Astounding' PHILIP HOARE
'A revelation' ISABELLA TREE

Reviews

  • An astonishing debut . . . The effect is transcendent . . . an exquisite and indefinable hybrid that is far greater than the sum of its parts . . . At a time when humanity is destroying natural abundance and failing to understand its own diversity, a book like Imbler's is a valuable gift
    Lucy Cooke, Guardian

About the author

Sabrina Imbler

Sabrina Imbler is a writer and science journalist living in Brooklyn. Their chapbook Dyke (geology), was published by Black Lawrence Press, and was selected for the National Book Foundation Science + Literature Program. They are a staff writer for Defector, a worker-owned site, where they cover creatures and the natural world. Their essays and reporting have appeared in the New York Times, the Atlantic, Catapult and Sierra, among other publications.
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