Islands of Abandonment
A nonfiction book about the ecology and psychology of abandoned places
THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER
Winner of the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year award
Winner of the John Burroughs Medal
Shortlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize,
the Royal Society of Literature’s Ondaatje Prize,
the British Academy Book Prize,
the Wainwright Prize,
and more
“Vital … Offers cautious optimism
for the fate of the planet’s species”
Washington Post
“Brilliant … vivid … clear and
compelling” ★★★★★
The Daily Telegraph
“Certainly a book of the year for me”
Sebastian Faulks
“Captures the dread, sadness, and wonder of beholding the results of humanity's destructive impulse”
The New Yorker
“Extraordinary … just when you thought there was nowhere left to explore, along comes an author with a new category of terrain”
The Spectator
In Chernobyl, following the nuclear disaster, only a handful of people returned to their dangerously irradiated homes. On an uninhabited Scottish island, feral cattle live entirely wild. In Detroit, once America’s fourth-largest city, entire streets of houses are falling in on themselves, looters slipping through otherwise silent neighbourhoods. Exploring extraordinary places where humans no longer live – or survive in tiny, precarious numbers – Islands of Abandonment give us a glimpse of what nature gets up to when we’re not there to see it. From Tanzanian mountains to the volcanic Caribbean, the forbidden areas of France to the mining regions of Scotland, Flyn brings together some of the most desolate, eerie, ravaged and polluted areas in the world – and shows how, against all odds, they offer our best opportunities for environmental recovery.
By turns haunted and hopeful, this luminously written world study is pinned together with profound insight and new ecological discoveries that together map an answer to the big questions: what happens after we’re gone, and how far can our damage to nature be undone?
“Brave, thorough … eerie and strange”
Kathleen Jamie, New Statesman
“Gives us grounds for hope, while not understating the huge task that awaits us ... A fresh, provocative and valuable book
Will Wiles, Literary Review
“Fascinating and brain-energising … Makes the imagination fizz”
Robbie Millen, The Times
“Lush and poetic … This is nature writing at its most potent.”
Publishers Weekly
Publishers
UK • William Collins
US • Viking
In translation:
Dutch • Atlas Contact
Italian • Edizioni di Atlantide
Spanish • Capitán Swing
Norwegian • Forlaget Press
German • Matthes & Seitz
Japanese • Soshisha
Simplified Chinese • Shanghai 99
Korean • Munhakdongne
Czech • Leda
Catalan • Saldonar
Complex Chinese • Business Weekly Publications
Polish • Otwarte
Hungarian • Park
French • Éditions Paulsen