With improved technology and a much greater appetite among the young for books to remind them of the wonderful biosphere in which they live, it is heartening to see how many new, high-quality publications are emerging from within India. Here are three books that Sanctuary believes should be in every public library and in the homes of all those whose hearts beat to nature’s drum.
Gathering
Edited by Durre Shahwar,
Nasia Sarwar-Skuse
Published by 404ink, Paperback,
177 pages, Price: £10.99
Gathering (2024) is a collection of personal essays on nature written by women of colour and published by an independent press, 404ink, which supports emerging writers. The essays revolve around the themes of loss, healing, walking, environmental destruction, and faith.
The title Gathering is a fitting choice, meaning to ‘meet up’. It creates a conversation rather than providing answers to what nature is and how it means different things to different people. This slim book of 177 pages can handhold someone who has been on the margins, and uplift the spirits of those trying to think with nature. It shows how intricately climate is connected to food or the desire for a trek in the countryside. It questions why we are more interested in knowing about orangutans through Netflix documentaries as compared to supporting people fighting to save these orangutans and their own existence. It questions how we can let the war continue. The book shows us that we are on the wrong side of history as well as the future.
Each essay is laden with an intense awareness of people’s conflicting histories with land, identity, and colonialism while being attentive to the portrayal of landscapes in popular media. Reading it made me wonder about our dynamics with nature and its sheer immensity, which can become entangled with the immensity of human malaise, such as cancer, the strangely misunderstood concept of neurodiversity, or the recent growth of sustainability ideas while still ‘holding on to white ideals’.
The subject matter of these essays is unique: observing the British countryside as a black woman, recognising queer facets of nature, appreciating nature and poetry in the midst of a cancer diagnosis, to even finding punk in nature. This anthology is interested in offering space for reflection. From the process of making sugar to thinking about where the food on our table comes from, and taking respite in stone watching, this book ponders what it means to ‘come to terms with being different’.
But don’t worry, the book won’t toss you into an abyss of existentialism. Instead, you will be harboured safely. The conversations in these essays reflect voices that are as fascinated with the landscapes of the United Kingdom as they are with their own complex identities – such as being a woman of Indian descent in a far-off, strange land. It reflects the myriad ways in which their everyday life is connected to colonial history.
Susmita Bhattacharya’s essay ‘The Gift of Healing’ meticulously examines the theme of belonging when cancer catches her off guard. Belonging, in fact, is turned over its head multiple times in these essays, as one reads about the writers collecting stones, animal bones, tending to flowerpots, and interacting with unexpected natural objects. Nature thus becomes not merely a source of comfort for those struggling, but also a source of knowledge for learning and unlearning.
Sharan Dhaliwal, in her essay ‘The Nature of White Sustainability’ offers sharp observations about the term of the decade – sustainability. The connection between nature and spirituality is vivid in Alycia Piramouhed’s ‘The Stones of Scotland/(a) version’ and Sofia Rehman’s ‘From God We Come and to God We Return’. Hannan Issa’s ‘The Sacred Arbor’ explores tree symbolism in Islamic faith.
In recounting these personal and intimate experiences with nature, the writers reimagine the contours of storytelling, such that both essay and poetry mix here. Khairani Barroka’s long poem ‘an ecostory’ is a powerful piece on the invisibilisation of voices that highlight environmental struggles faced by countries of the global south, such as Indonesia. Her piece is a scathing critique of the pollution and waste created by developed nations and the dominant role played by the media in making sure that the struggles of developing countries persist. It gives voice to the continuous erasure of narratives from marginal communities and questions the different lenses through which the environmental justice movement is viewed and portrayed by journalists, thereby challenging writing as a mere documentation exercise. Barroka writes, “At a later date, an Australian woman engages in an ill-advised online argument with me. ‘Where are the Indonesian environmental protests? I’ve never heard of them.’ is the exact argument.”
This book is for anyone interested in reading narratives about how personal and political lives are at stake amidst the growing climate crisis. It affects us all. So, if you are a reader, pick it up. If you are interested in your own life, pick it up!
Reviewed by Shreyasi Sharma
