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Is a River Alive?
Brief Description
From celebrated writer Robert Macfarlane comes this brilliant, perspective-shifting new book— which answers a resounding yes to the question of its title. At its heart is a single, transformative idea: that rivers are not mere matter for human use, but living beings—who should be recognised as...
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Is a River Alive?
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Description
From celebrated writer Robert Macfarlane comes this brilliant, perspective-shifting new book— which answers a resounding yes to the question of its title.
At its heart is a single, transformative idea: that rivers are not mere matter for human use, but living beings—who should be recognised as such in both imagination and law. Is a River Alive? takes the reader on an exhilarating exploration of the past, present, and futures of this ancient, urgent concept.
The book flows first to northern Ecuador, where a miraculous cloud-forest and its rivers are threatened by goldmining.
Then, to the wounded rivers, creeks, and lagoons of southern India, where a desperate battle to save the lives of these water bodies is underway.
And finally, 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.
At once Macfarlane's most personal and most political book to date, Is a River Alive? will open hearts, spark debates, and lead us to the revelation that our fate flows with that of rivers—and always has.
Book Details
INFORMATION
ISBN: 9780241998212
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Format: Paperback / softback
Date Published: 05 March 2026
Country: United Kingdom
Imprint: Penguin Books Ltd
Audience: General / adult
DIMENSIONS
Spine width: 15.0mm
Width: 129.0mm
Height: 198.0mm
Weight: 200g
Pages: 288
About the Author
Robert Macfarlane's Sunday Times- and New York Times-bestselling books include Is a River Alive?, 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, albums, choral works, and films including River and Mountain, both narrated by Willem Dafoe. Macfarlane has collaborated closely with artists including Olafur Eliasson, 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. In 2017, the American Academy of Arts and Letters awarded him the E.M. Forster Prize for Literature, and in 2023 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 presently working on a graphic novel re-telling of the Epic of Gilgamesh. Macfarlane and Morris's latest project, The Book of Birds, will be published in May 2026.
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