Fen, Bog and Swamp: A Short History of Peatland Destruction and Its Role in the Climate Crisis

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A BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week

A subject that could not be more important. A compact classic! Bill McKibben

I learned something new and found something amazing on every page Anthony Doerr, author of All the Light We Cannot See
From Pulitzer Prize winner Annie Proulx whose novels are infused with her knowledge and deep concern for the earth comes an urgent and riveting history of wetlands, their ecological role and how the loss of them threatens the planet.

Fens, bogs, swamps and marine estuaries are the earths most desirable and dependable resources, and in four illuminating parts Proulx documents the emergence of their systemic destruction in the pursuit of profit and the consequent release of their stored carbon. Wide-ranging and idiosyncratic, Proulxs explanation of wetlands takes readers to the fens of sixteenth-century England, Canadas Hudson Bay Lowlands, Russias Great Vasyugan Mire and Americas Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge and introduces the nineteenth-century explorers who launched the ravaging of the Amazon rainforest.

Proulx was born in the 1930s, a time, as she says, when in the ever-continuing name of progress, Western countries busily raped their own and other countries of minerals, timber, fish and wildlife. Fen, Bog & Swamp is both a revelatory history and an urgent plea for wetland reclamation from a writer whose passionate devotion to observing and preserving the environment is on glorious display.

Magnificent, bringing to life hitherto overlooked habitats Guardian

Proulx's sparkling book will open your eyes to humanity's reckless trashing of wetlands Telegraph

A haunting tribute Proulxs poetic description of these places, and peat itself, is a pleasure to read Financial Times

Reviews

So often feared, dredged and drained, swamps, bogs and fens (it turns out) are just as vital to our species survival on this planet as healthy forests and oceans perhaps more so. Proulx has written a moving elegy and cri de coeur for our worlds wetlands. I learned something new and found something amazing on every page Anthony Doerr, author of All the Light We Cannot See

Talk about seeing the whole world through a single well-chosen window! Annie Proulx is, as ever, remarkable her mind, her heart and her learning take us on an unforgettable and unflinching tour of past and present, fixed on a subject that could not be more important. A compact classic! Bill McKibben

Annie Proulx has brought nature full circle in her short history, Fen, Bog, and Swamp We must understand and restore these vital ecosystems to protect our future Diana Beresford-Kroeger, author of To Speak for the Trees

Proulx wants us to see the loss of wetlands and to appreciate the beauty in these swampy and often stinking places. Boy, does she succeed. The prose is just magnificent, bringing to life hitherto overlooked habitats Guardian

Annie Proulx's sparkling book Fen, Bog & Swamp will open your eyes to humanity's reckless trashing of wetlands in the name of 'improvement' Telegraph

A haunting tribute to the worlds peatlands Proulxs poetic description of these places, and peat itself, is a pleasure to read Financial Times

Proulxs astute and impassioned examinations of all kinds of wetlands show a new side of the novelist we thought we knew Los Angeles Times

An enchanting work of nature writing and a rousing call to action Esquire

Writing with her signature vitality, precision, and creativity, she crafts a galvanizing narrative Proulxs concern for the future of life on earth as the planet warms is acute Booklist

Author Bio

Annie Proulx published her first novel Postcards in 1991 at the age of 56. She is the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Shipping News, the acclaimed novels Accordion Crimes and That Old Ace in the Hole, and the bestselling short story collection, Close Range.