Posts filed under 'ecowriting'

Weekly Dispatches From the Frontlines of World Literature

July 28, 2023  |  in Dispatches, News, Weekly Roundup  |  by Eva Wissting, MARGENTO, and Sofija Popovska

Dispatches from Romania, Sweden, and North Macedonia!

In this week’s dispatches, our editors report on the continual remembrance of iconic poets, interdisciplinary festivals, and writing that draws attention to the climate crisis. Read on to find out more!

Sofija Popovska, Editor-at-Large, reporting from North Macedonia

Sixty years after the tragic passing of Danica Ručigaj, iconic poet and pioneer of écriture féminine in North Macedonia, an anniversary edition containing the entirety of her oeuvre was published this month. The collection, entitled Srebreni nokjni igri i zarobenici na vetrot (Silver Nighttime Games and Prisoners of the Wind) was prepared by two prominent publicists and journalists working at Radio Skopje, Sveto Stamenov and Iskra Cholovikj, who have dedicated over two decades to researching Ručigaj’s reception and sustaining the vivacity of her legacy.

Ručigaj (1934–1963), sometimes referred to as the Sylvia Plath of North Macedonia for the unabashed vulnerability of her writing, studied ancient Greek, Latin, and Southern Slavic literature, and also worked for the Cultural Ministry of North Macedonia. She passed away at the age of twenty-nine in the 1963 Skopje earthquake—a devastating event that resulted in numerous casualties and left the entire city in ruins. Two poems famously discovered in the ruins of Ručigaj’s home—“Circles” and “Untitled”—will be featured in the anthology, along with essays about her work by prominent scholars and a complete bibliography of publications containing Ručigaj’s writing.

Ručigaj’s poetry, informed by her academic background and nonconformist, taboo-defying artistic attitude, occupies a prominent position in Macedonian literary history. Her refusal to comply with patriarchal norms continues to retain its relevance, as anti-equality sentiments are rising amidst the public. In one of her best-known poems, “No, Do Not Speak to Me” (“Ne, Ne Zboruvaj Mi”), a feminine voice laments the death of a bird who lived “within eyes that have now dried up”, simultaneously noting that its death might be a relief to some: “Come hither, do not fear / Those eyes no longer shine / And so, come hither.” As the poem progresses, we begin to realize that the owner of the eyes is the feminine speaker herself; without the bird—their inner songsmith—they no longer pose a threat to the Other that the poem is directed to. This poem remains an accurate image of gender relations in Macedonian society, where equality is still considered a threat to the “sanctity of the family”. READ MORE…

Extinction: Missing a Whole Other World

July 3, 2023  |  in Essays  |  by Charlie Ng

. . . storytelling does not attempt to recover what has been lost, but creates another world that dreams of conservation. . .

In the second essay of a series considering ecological literature and writings on animal life, as collected in our Spring 2023 special feature, Charlie Ng examines the pressing issue of species extinction through Wu Ming-yi’s poignant story of grief and resurrection, “Cloudland”. By connecting an intimate loss to the broader losses caused by the Anthropocene, Wu equalises human relationships with the less visible connections between individuals and their landscape, illustrating vividly the consequences of absence to consider how storytelling and an return to indigenous knowledge can activate empathy and our impetus to preserve.

Earth is no stranger to mass extinction; the most recent, the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction event, was caused by a major asteroid collision, wiping out seventy-six percent of living species. In consideration of these great cycles of birth and death, it seems that lifeforms are destined to come and go—so why should we care about extinction?

Perhaps because we’re causing it. Elizabeth Kolbert’s The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History has drawn public attention to the fact that the titular extinction we are currently experiencing is, unlike the previous five, attributable to human activities. As such, the sixth mass extinction has come to be referred to as the Anthropocene extinction, the consequences of which have been well-documented across the globe. One such case is Taiwan, which, despite being just roughly the size of twice that of Hawaii, has a remarkably diverse range of flora and fauna due to its forested mountains and oceanic surrounding. However, many of its native animal species have become endangered or extinct due to adverse impacts of human development such as deforestation, pollution, habitat loss, and overhunting.

“Cloudland,” Taiwanese writer Wu Ming-yi’s short story in the animal-themed feature of our Spring 2023 issue, has an extinct animal at its center: the clouded leopard. Despite occasional reported sightings of the animal, experts generally believe that the leopards have been gone for decades—and such is the case in “Cloudland”, where the animal is only present through its absence. The nonexistent leopard is simultaneously a denotation of the extinction’s sad reality and a literary symbol, acting as a mythical figure and a stand-in for the protagonist’s deceased wife. In tackling grief and loss, Wu tells the story of a man named Shutter as he searches for the already gone, trying to heal by reconnecting to nature and the indigenous wisdom of intimacy between people and their environment. READ MORE…