ABOUT THE EVENT:

The composer Pauline Oliveros once gave the following instruction to some of her students: ‘Walk so silently that the bottoms of your feet become ears.’ What would it feel like to walk so silently, and so slowly, that our whole bodies become ‘ears’, tuned to the unfolding world around us? In this event, we will explore this question by participating in a slow walk around Marksbury Road library.

Please remember to wear warm and weather-appropriate clothing!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Dr Michael Malay BA(Qld.), MA(Bristol), PhD(Bristol)

Lecturer in English Literature and Environmental Humanities, Department of English, University of Bristol

Michael works on poetry and environmental literature. He has published articles on John Keats, Elizabeth Bishop, and Raymond Williams, as well as creative non-fiction on a range of subjects. He is the author of Late Light, a book about migration, belonging and extinction, as well as an academic monograph called The Figure of the Animal in Modern and Contemporary Poetry. He is currently working on two new projects, one about the life of John Berger, and the other about the relationship between plants and politics.

ABOUT LATE LIGHT:

‘Late Light brings the refreshing perspective of someone who goes from seeing England as a foreign place to someone who deeply studies its secret wonders. An astonishing read.’ – Amy Liptrot, The Outrun

This is a book about falling in love with vanishing things

Late Light is the story of Michael Malay’s own journey, an Indonesian Australian making a home for himself in England and finding strange parallels between his life and the lives of the animals he examines. Mixing natural history with memoir, this book explores the mystery of our animal neighbours, in all their richness and variety. It is about the wonder these animals inspired in our ancestors, the hope they inspire in us, and the joy they might still hold for our children.

Late Light is about migration, belonging and extinction. Through the close examination of four particular ‘unloved’ animals – eels, moths, crickets and mussels – Michael Malay tells the story of the economic, political and cultural events that have shaped the modern landscape of Britain.

For readers of Robert Macfarlane, Raynor Winn and Helen Macdonald, Late Light is a rich blend of memoir, natural history, nature writing, and a meditation on being and belonging, from a vibrant new voice.

‘Late Light is a book that glows with warmth in spite of its dark subtext. Malay’s prose is gorgeous and astute; he looks with fresh eyes at unpopular species and finds poetry and meaning. His voice is irresistible – Late Light is a powerful new work of nature writing. ‘ – Sara Baume, Seven Steeples

‘Late Light is a book of little revelations. It approaches small things with a quiet and tender profundity, and its attentiveness to the quivering of life will leave you aching with world-love.’ – Abi Andrews, The Word for Woman is Wilderness