Wildness, to the celebrated writer-activist Jay Griffiths, is elemental: “pure freedom, pure passion, pure hunger. It is its own manifesto.” Triggered by a debilitating depression, her seven-year odyssey in search of the meaning and nature of wildness takes her through from the Peruvian Amazon to west Papua via the Canadian Arctic, the Indonesian Ocean and the Australian outback.
Moving through the elements of earth, ice, water, fire and air, Griffiths encounters communities and wildlife habitats devastated by environmental destruction, patriarchy, extractivism and colonial injustice, which lace her pantheistic hymn to wildness with a deep sense of urgency.
Read more of our Climate Classics: timeless works exploring themes of climate change and biodiversity loss.
