Robert Macfarlane

One of our most beloved chroniclers of nature, Robert Macfarlane discusses his thought-provoking new book Is a River Alive?

Through three key waterways: the Río Los Cedros (the ‘River of the Cedars’); the wounded creeks, lagoons and estuaries of Chennai, and the Mutehekau Shipu, which runs from the wild interior of Nitassinan to the Gulf of St Lawrence, all places where rivers are believed to be alive, Robert asks, ‘What is the river saying?’

The answers provide new ways of thinking about the water, how we ensure its survival and, ultimately, how rivers offer us hope for the future.

Passionate, original and revelatory, Is A River Alive? is Robert’s most personal and most political book to date. It teems with fascinating ideas, unforgettable characters and stories. Weaving cultural and natural history, reportage, travel and nature writing together, it takes the reader on a mind-expanding global journey.

Robert is the international bestselling writer of Underland, Landmarks, The Old Ways, The Wild Places and Mountains of the Mind, as well as the book-length prose-poem, Ness.

His work has been translated into more than thirty languages, won many prizes around the world and been widely adapted for film, music, theatre, radio and dance.

In 2017, the American Academy of Arts and Letters awarded him the E.M. Forster Prize for Literature, and in 2022 in Toronto he was the inaugural winner of the Weston International Award for a body of work in the field of non-fiction.

He co-created The Lost Words and The Lost Spells with artist Jackie Morris and they are currently completing the third book The Lost Birds.

Hosted by Helen Mort, award-winning poet, novelist and fellow nature lover.