Dispersals

Bookshop, A Most Anticipated Title of the Year“A terrific work on how borders work to keep both people and plants separated.” —Lorraine Berry, The Los Angeles Times“Contemplative, elegant.” —Sophie McBain, The New Statesman“Weaving material from literary, personal, scientific and historical sources, Lee examines plants—including seaweed and far beyond it—that broach human borders, exploring their migrations alongside her own … Lee writes intimately about her own oscillating cravings for movement and rootedness against a backdrop of COVID and new motherhood … Dispersals asks readers to consider how plants challenge not only spatial borders but taxonomic ones.” —Erica Berry, Scientific American“Lee’s lyrical prose sprouts from a fertile ground of intensive research and intimate memories—memories that are by turns sharply vivid and pleasantly hazy with the distance of time.” —Katja Vujić, The Cut“A deeply necessary text and a deeply pleasurable one. It’s the kind of book that opens up questions you didn’t know to ask and will have you carrying those questions, and Lee’s words, with you into all of your human and plant relationships.” —Madi Whaley, The Maine Organic Farmer & Gardener“In a time of uncertainty and climatic instability, Dispersals is a quiet yet probing meditation on what it means to inhabit our world as we’ve made it.” —Rose Rankin, BookBrowse“Lee evokes a centuries-long history of border crossings—by people and by plants—to throw into question what it means to really belong, love, and protect, and what our collective future might hold on a planet forever evolving in the wake of trans-continental migration.” —Amy Brady, Literary Hub“Exquisite, haunting … Lee continues her insistent, clear-eyed quest for nourishment and vitality, even when both are complicated, and encourages readers to do the same.” —Shelf Awareness (starred review)“Lee does a masterful job of blending personal reflection with natural and political history, and her prose is crystalline … This deserves a wide audience.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)“Richly textured … These essays critically probe the native/nonnative paradigm of invasive-species ecology. Lee’s voice will stay with readers long after they finish this book.” —Library Journal (starred review)“Lee writes lucidly about her encounters with various plant species and poses reflective questions about plants and her own sense of belonging. Memoir readers interested in plants and environmental studies especially will find a poignant meditation on the parallels between plants and human societies when it comes to life’s transitions and movements.” —Booklist“The author laces her histories with a subtle and personal optimism. Just as those plants replanted far from home, we can adapt to transition, dispersal, and recollection. An insightful meditation on nature and identity within ‘a world in motion.’” —Kirkus Reviews“Exquisite, haunting … Lee continues her insistent, clear-eyed quest for nourishment and vitality, even when both are complicated, and encourages readers to do the same.” —Shelf Awareness

Jessica J. Lee is a British-Canadian-Taiwanese author, environmental historian, and winner of the Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for Nonfiction, the Boardman Tasker Award for Mountain Literature, the Banff Mountain Book Award, and the RBC Taylor Prize Emerging Writer Award. She is the author of Turning, Two Trees Make a Forest, and the children’s book A Garden Called Home, and co-editor of the essay collection Dog Hearted. She is the founding editor of The Willowherb Review and teaches creative writing at the University of Cambridge. She lives in Berlin.