Cal Flynn’s Islands of Abandonment

Islands of abandonment: Life in posthuman landscapes
south of Cal Flynn

This book is a beautiful exploration of places where nature flourishes in our absence. Some of the world’s only truly feral cattle roam a long-abandoned island in the far north of Scotland. A variety of wildlife not seen in a long time has re-emerged on the irradiated grounds of Chernobyl. In the narrow demilitarized zone of the Korean Peninsula, a lush forest is home to thousands of species extinct or endangered elsewhere. Flyn visits the bleakest and most desolate places on Earth that, due to war, catastrophe, disease or economic decline, have been abandoned by humans. What he finds each time is an “island” of new life: nature has rushed to fill the void faster and deeper than scientists’ most optimistic projections. Islands of Abandonment is a journey through these new ecosystems, as places of unexpected environmental importance, where the natural world has reaffirmed its wild power.

A book about abandoned places: ghost cities, exclusion zones, no man’s lands and fortress islands, and what happens when we let nature claim its place.

Award-winning writer from the Scottish Highlands. She writes works of literary nonfiction and investigative journalism. She is the deputy editor of the Five Books website. She has recently been named the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year 2021. Her writings are published in Granta, The Sunday Times Magazine, Telegraph Magazine and The Economist, among others. She is a Prospect columnist and a regular contributor to The Guardian. She has been a writer-in-residence at the Gladstone Library and the Jan Michalski Foundation in Switzerland. She was named a MacDowell Fellow in 2019, during which time she wrote ‘Islands of Abandonment