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A beautiful, honest and ultimately uplifting memoir about family grief and ecological breakdown
A WATERSTONES BEST BIOGRAPHY OF 2024
My son’s death will never make sense to me. But it has taught me that it’s possible to find meaning, collectively and individually, in the loss of what we love. And in finding them, transform. Resilience is a seed that we all bear inside us. It germinates in emergencies. It sets down roots in astonishing and unexpected ways. And if we notice it, and tend to it, it blooms.
Liz Jensen’s son, a zoologist, conservationist and ecological activist, was twenty-five when he collapsed and died unexpectedly. She fell apart. As she grieved, forest fires raged, coral reefs deteriorated, CO2 emissions rose and fossil fuels burned.
Your Wild and Precious Life is the story of how a mother rebuilt herself, reoriented her life and rediscovered the enchantment of the living world. Set against the backdrop of climate and ecological catastrophe, it’s an argument for agency, legacy and the wild possibility of hope after devastation.
“A mother’s unflinching account of finding meaning in her son’s unexpected death. His is not the only death to haunt the pages of this raw and urgent memoir. Jensen’s focus shifts between her own grief, and a mourning for lost nature”
guardian
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“This book is made of diamonds and tears, glittering with brilliance, a work of priceless insight”
Jay Griffiths
“Liz Jensen is an amazing writer and there is huge force and power in this story of reckoning with loss”
Cathy Rentzenbrink
“Written with power and emotion, [this] beautiful and moving book explores how we live, love and grieve”
stylist
“Fierce and fizzing with life. It faces the monster of parental loss absolutely head on and turns it into a joyous celebration. Raph / Iggy will carry on living because of this book”
Mark Haddon
Liz Jensen
Liz Jensen is the author of eight acclaimed novels including The Ninth Life of Louis Drax and the climate thrillers The Rapture and The Uninvited. She is a founder of the ecological campaign group Writers Rebel and the creator of the Rebel Library. She lives in Copenhagen.
@LizJensenWriter | lizjensen.com
Raphaël Coleman was a wildlife biologist and activist. He worked with wildlife sanctuaries all over the world, created the international wildlife workers’ network The Wildwork and campaigned with Extinction Rebellion under the alias Iggy Fox. He died suddenly in February 2020 at the age of twenty-five.
IggyFox.com