Abi Andrews

Wildnis ist ein weibliches Wort

Abi Andrews

Von einer, die auszog, die Wildnis kennenzulernen Erin ist 19 und Feministin. Sie liebt Geschichten von furchtlosen Aussteigern, die alles hinter sich lassen, um ein Leben in der Natur, fernab der Zivilisation zu wagen. Warum eigentlich, denkt sie, sollen diese Abenteuer immer nur Männern vorbehalten sein? Und macht sich auf: mit dem Schiff nach Island, über Grönland und am Polarkreis entlang nach Kanada und schließlich Alaska. Sie ist zu Fuß unterwegs, per Anhalter, mit dem Hundeschlitten und Fischerbooten. Ihre Erfahrungen inmitten der gottverlassenen Wildnis bringen sie an ihre Grenzen, beflügeln sie und lassen sie für immer verändert zurück. »Ein Buch wie dieses haben Sie noch nie gelesen, so verführerisch, so mutig, so amüsant.« The Guardian

The Word for Woman Is Wilderness

Abi Andrews

THE OFFICIAL NORTH AMERICAN EDITION"Beguiling, audacious… rises to its own challenges in engaging intellectually as well as wholeheartedly with its questions about gender, genre and the concept of wilderness. The novel displays wide reading, clever writing and amusing dialogue." — The Guardian This is a new kind of nature writing – one that crosses fiction with science writing and puts gender politics at the center of the landscape. Erin, a 19-year-old girl from middle England, is travelling to Alaska on a journey that takes her through Iceland, Greenland, and across Canada. She is making a documentary about how men are allowed to express this kind of individualism and personal freedom more than women are, based on masculinist ideas of survivalism and the shunning of society: the “Mountain Man.” She plans to culminate her journey with an experiment: living in a cabin in the Alaskan wilderness, a la Thoreau, to explore it from a feminist perspective. The book is a fictional time capsule curated by Erin, comprising of personal narrative, fact, anecdote, images and maps, on subjects as diverse as The Golden Records, Voyager 1, the moon landings, the appropriation of Native land and culture, Rachel Carson, The Order of The Dolphin, The Doomsday Clock, Ted Kaczynski, Valentina Tereshkova, Jack London, Thoreau, Darwin, Nuclear war, The Letters of Last Resort and the pill, amongst many other topics. "Refreshingly outward-looking in a literary culture that turns ever inward to the self, although it still has profound moments of introspection. Uplifting, with a thirsty curiosity, the writing is playful and exuberant. Riffing on feminist ideas but unlimited in scope, Andrews focuses our attention on our beautiful, doomed planet, and the astonishing things we have yet to discover." —Ruth McKee, The Irish Times