Why Rebel?

Because our footprint on the Earth has never mattered more than now. How we treat it, in the spirit of gift or of theft, has never been more important.

Because we need a politics of kindness, but the very opposite is on the rise. Libertarian fascism, with its triumphal brutalism, its racism and misogyny – a politics that loathes the living world.

Because nature is not a hobby. It is the life on which we depend, as Indigenous societies have never forgotten.

Only when it is dark enough can you see the stars, and they are lining up now to write rebellion across the skies.

From the author of Wild, this passionate, poetic manifesto for urgent rebellion is also a paean to the deep and extraordinary beauty of the real, the true, the living world.

I felt its urgent demand in the blood. I could hear its call. Its whistling disturbed me by day and its howl woke me in the night. I heard the drum of the sun. Every path was a calling cadence, the flight of every bird a beckoning, the colour of ice an invitation: come. Every mountain top intrigued my mind, for the wind at the peaks was the flautist, licking his lips, dangerously mesmerizing me with almost inaudible melodies. This was the calling, the vehement, irresistible demand of the feral angel – take flight.

Wild was the winner of the inaugural Orion Book Award and was shortlisted for the Orwell prize and for the World Book Day award.