Aimee Nezhukumatathil is the author of four collections of poems, including, most recently, Oceanic, winner of the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters Award. Other awards for her writing include fellowships and grants from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, Mississippi Arts Council, and MacDowell. Her writing appears in Poetry, the New York Times Magazine, ESPN, and Tin House. She serves as poetry faculty for the Writing Workshops in Greece and is professor of English and creative writing in the University of Mississippi's MFA program.
Praise for World of Wonders "From its gorgeous illustrations
to its unusual combination of lyrical nature writing and memoir,
World of Wonders is hands-down one of the most beautiful books of
the year." —NPR, "Best Books of 2020"
"Within two pages, nature writing feels different and fresh and
new. Nezhukumatathil has written a timely story about love,
identity and belonging . . . We are losing the language and the
ability to see and understand the wondrous things around us. And
our lives are impoverished by this process . . . This book demands
we find the eyes to see and the heart to love such things once
more. It is a very fine book indeed, truly full of wonder." —New
York Times Book Review“"From peacocks to eels and dragon fruit,
it’s immediately clear the poet is right at home in the world of
the essay.”—Shondaland "It can be helpful to focus on the wonder of
the natural world when so much of what is happening around us feels
out of our control . . . World of Wonders urges us to take a breath
and look around." —NPR Morning Edition“This book is part nature
writing, part memoir, part cultural criticism…and every bit of it
is rendered in thoughtful and striking prose...There’s something
magical about the combination of personal storytelling and
naturalist information. Essays like 'Peacock' will have you near
tears on behalf of the child Nezhukumatathil, whose closed-minded
teacher does such terrible damage over a simple drawing of a bird.
Others, like 'Axolotl,' will immerse you in fascinating details of
the unusual amphibian’s wondrous abilities even as it infuriates
you about the impact of racist microaggressions. And while such a
culmination of ideas could easily feel contrived, World of Wonders
is as natural as the amazing creatures that populate its
pages.”—Book Riot, "9 Unforgettable Prose Books Written By Poets""A
truly wondrous essay collection that reminds us that when we look
close enough we can see that we are surrounded by extraordinary
things."—Roxane Gay "World of Wonders, kind of like Aimee, is
flabbergasted, gobsmacked, and astonished with glee by all kinds of
creatures and phenomena, all kinds of kin, from flamingos to
catalpas, from monsoons to corpse flowers, from dancing frogs to
axolotls." —Ross Gay, Poets & Writers
"In thirty bewitching essays, Nezhukumatathil spotlights natural
astonishments raining from monsoon season in India to clusters of
fireflies in western New York, each one a microcosm of joy and
amazement. With her ecstatic prose and her rapturous powers of
insight, Nezhukumatathil proves herself a worthy spiritual
successor to the likes of Mary Oliver and Annie Dillard, setting
the bar high for a new generation of nature writers." —Esquire,
"Best Books of Fall 2020
"The nature writing we have been exposed to has been overwhelmingly
male and white, which is just one reason that Aimee
Nezhukumatathil's latest essay collection, World of Wonders: In
Praise of Fireflies, Whale Sharks, and Other Astonishments is a
breath of fresh air . . . What makes her work shine is its joyful
embrace of difference, revealing that true beauty resides only in
diversity." —San Francisco Chronicle
"World of Wonders is a stunning union of biography, poetry,
philosophy, and science; it is imbued with a love for her readers
and for the natural world, and with a hope that people of color
will feel more seen in nature writing . . . With a sense of
amazement for the creatures around us, Aimee makes an ardent and
artistic case for a compassionate ethics grounded in a deeper
understanding—and love—of nature." —The Rumpus
"Nezhukumatathil's investigations, enhanced by Nakamura's vividly
rendered full-color illustrations, range across the world, from a
rapturous rendering of monsoon season in her father's native India
to her formative years in Iowa, Kansas, and Arizona, where she
learned from the native flora and fauna that it was common to be
different . . . The writing dazzles with the marvel of being fully
alive." —Kirkus Reviews, Starred Review
"Nezhukumatathil's essays, with vibrant illustrations from
Nakamura, are in turn humorous, poignant, relatable, passionate
(especially when she's bemoaning disappearing species and
habitats), and always interesting." —Booklist
"A lyrical exploration of a woman finding her true home in the
world, interspersed with hauntingly beautiful descriptions of the
lives on the animals and plants that illuminate it, this natural
history will appeal to nature lovers and readers who relish
thoughtful, introspective works. Also suggest to fans of Margaret
Renkl's Late Migrations." —Library Journal
"Aimee Nezhukumatathil's shimmering essay collection about
fantastic creatures and plants, World of Wonders, is shot through
with memories of her peripatetic life and observations about race,
motherhood, and environmental issues . . . [It's] a bibliophilic
and visual delight that dazzles the senses, much like
Nezhukumatathil's beloved comb jellies. Her entrancing essays are a
reminder to spend more time outdoors wondering at and cherishing
this 'magnificent and wondrous planet.'" —Foreword Reviews, Starred
Review
"Reading World of Wonders, it's clear that Nezhukumtathil is a
poet. These essays sing with joy and longing—each focusing on a
different natural wonder, all connected by the thread of
Nezhukumtathil's curiosity and her identification with the world's
beautiful oddities . . . It's a heartwarming, poignant, and often
funny collection, enlivened by Fumi Nakamura's dreamy
illustrations." —BuzzFeed, "Summer Books You Won't Be Able to Put
Down"
"Should the wonderful David Attenborough ever retire, my hope is
someone at BBC has read the work of Aimee Nezhukumatathil . . .
What a lovely book this is, gentle in its pacing, well-illustrated
by Fumi Nakamura, and quietly subversive in the way she channels
its gusts of joy." —Literary Hub, "Best New Books to Read This
Summer"
"Nezhukumatathil's 30 essays are brightly crafted microcosms of
childhood, identity, belonging, parenthood, and memory. From
fireflies recalling summer nights in rural western New York to
touch-me-not plants sparking contemplation on closeness, the
writing shines with a tactile and beautiful lyricism that
reimagines the world we see every day and sparks new magic in it."
—Ralph Lauren Magazine, "The Summer Reading List"
"Nezhukumatathil is the environmental writer we should be reading
in schools, instead of Emerson or Thoreau." —The New Southern
Fugitives
"Aimee Nezhukumatathil's World of Wonders is the first book to make
me feel like a firefly as much as it reminds me I'm still a black
boy playing in Central Mississippi woods. The book walks. It
sprints. It leaps. Most importantly, the book lingers in a world
where power, people, and the literal outside wrestle painfully,
beautifully. This book is a world of wonders. This book is about to
shake the Earth." —Kiese Laymon
"Sometimes we need teachers who remind us how to be flabbergasted
and gobsmacked and flummoxed and enswooned by the wonders of this
earth. How to be in stupefied and devotional love to the wonders of
this earth. How to be in love with this, our beloved earth. Aimee
Nezhukumatathil's World of Wonders is as good and generous a
teacher as one could ever ask for. This book enraptures with its
own astonishments and reveries while showing us how to be
enraptured, how to revere. Which, again, is showing us how to be in
love. I can think of nothing more important. Or wonderful." —Ross
Gay, author of The Books of Delights
"Nezhukumtathil applies her skill as a poet to a scintillating
series of short essays on nature. She takes up topics that
fascinate her—the bizarre-looking potoo birds of Central and South
America; corpse flowers, with their rich colors and acrid odor—and
connects them to her own experience of the world . . . Throughout,
she vividly describes sounds, smells, and color—the myriad hues of
a 'sea of saris' from India—and folds in touches of poetry. Fumi
Nakamura's lush illustrations add to the book's appeal. Readers of
Terry Tempest Williams and Annie Dillard will appreciate
Nezhukumtathil's lyrical look at nature." —Publishers Weekly
“These are the praise songs of a poet working brilliantly in prose.
Each essay compresses a great deal of art and truth into a small
space, whether about fireflies or flamingos, monkeys or monsoons,
childhood or motherhood, or the trials and triumphs of living with
a brown skin in a dominant white world. You will not find a more
elegant, exuberant braiding of natural and personal history.”
—Scott Russell Sanders
"World of Wonders is a mesmerizing work of essays and tender
illustrations, meditations on nature, cumulative in effect; nature
as memoir, nature as memoir, nature as simply and joyously itself.
Each chapter captures a moment, each centered around a different
natural phenomenon and charts the reverberations of the lived
experience it evokes, be in family, identity, or the notion of
belonging. A centering book, delightful and unexpected." —Sallye L,
Barnes & Noble Book of the Year Finalist selection
"This isn't your typical dry and stuffy nature writing essayist
that you were forced to read in college. No, this ecologist's take
on the natural world is more akin to lyrical prose with social
commentary and pop culture references laced throughout. Relevant
and inspiring, Aimee Nezhukumatathil reminds us once again why
nature is so absolutely amazing and beautiful." —Mike O, Barnes &
Noble Book of the Year Finalist selection
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