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Is a River Alive?

byRobert Macfarlane

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At its heart is a single, transformative idea: that rivers are not mere matter for human use, but living beings – who should be recognized as such in both imagination and law. Inspired by the activists, artists and lawmakers of the young ‘Rights of Nature’ movement, Macfarlane takes the reader on an exhilarating exploration of the past, present and futures of this ancient, urgent concept.

Is a River Alive? flows like water from the mountains to the sea, over three major journeys:
The first is to northern Ecuador, where a miraculous cloud-forest and its rivers are threatened with destruction by gold-mining.

The second is to the wounded rivers, creeks and lagoons of southern India, where a desperate battle to save the lives of these waterbodies is under way.

The third is to north-eastern Quebec, where a spectacular wild river – the Mutehekau or Magpie – is being defended from death by damming in a river-rights campaign.

Braiding these journeys is the life story of the fragile chalk stream who rises a mile from Macfarlane’s house, and flows through his own years and days.

Passionate, immersive and revelatory, Is a River Alive? is at once Macfarlane’s most personal and most political book to date. It is a book that will open hearts, spark debates and challenge perspectives. Lit throughout by other minds and voices, it invites us radically to reimagine not only rivers but also life itself. At the centre of this vital, beautiful book is the recognition that our fate flows with that of rivers – and always has.

Everyone who has ever found something to love in a river should find something to love in this book. It is a masterpiece

The Economist

About Robert Macfarlane

Robert Macfarlane is internationally renowned for his writing on nature, people and place. His bestselling books include Underland, Landmarks, The Old Ways, The Wild Places and Mountains of the Mind, as well as a book-length prose-poem, Ness. His work has been translated into more than thirty languages, won prizes around the world, and been widely adapted for film, music, theatre, radio and dance. He has also written operas, plays, and films including River and Mountain, both narrated by Willem Dafoe. He has collaborated closely with artists including Olafur Eliasson and Stanley Donwood, and with the artist Jackie Morris he co-created the internationally bestselling books of nature-poetry and art, The Lost Words and The Lost Spells. As a lyricist and performer, he has written albums and songs with musicians including Cosmo Sheldrake, Karine Polwart and Johnny Flynn, with whom he has released two albums, Lost In The Cedar Wood (2021) and The Moon Also Rises (2023). In 2017, the American Academy of Arts and Letters awarded him the E.M. Forster Prize for Literature, and in 2022 in Toronto he was the inaugural winner of the Weston International Award for a body of work in the field of non-fiction. He is a Fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, and is currently completing his third book with Jackie Morris: The Lost Birds.
Details
  • Imprint: Hamish Hamilton
  • ISBN: 9780241624814
  • Length: 384 pages
  • Dimensions: 241mm x 34mm x 163mm
  • Weight: 594g
  • Price: £25.00
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