“These are essays written for a world in motion,” writes Jessica J. Lee in the introduction to her exquisite, haunting third book, Dispersals: On Plants, Borders, and Belonging, a collection of 14 essays examining the movement–voluntary, forced and accidental–of people and plants across landscapes.
Writing in a time of massive global migration, and having experienced several recent upheavals in her own life (including motherhood and the COVID-19 pandemic), Lee considers terms like rooted and migration in light of economic structures, political power, and her own Welsh-Taiwanese-Canadian ancestry. She probes, researches, and even delights in the ways in which plants–seeds, trees, rhizomes–consistently defy human notions of borders and boundaries.
I’ve got a review of Lee’s wonderful book up at The Common today. Please head over there to read the whole piece!
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