Charles Foster: Cry of the Wild

Charles Foster is a New York Times bestselling author whose work has been longlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize, shortlisted for the Wainwright Prize for nature writing, and won the Ig Nobel Prize for Biology and the 30 Millions d'Amis Prize.

Now, the author of the brilliant Being a Beast, joins us to talk on his new book, Cry of the Wild. In his words, we’re dying for want of a story. Our brains and intellects are resisting the reality of climate change and the prospect of mass extinction. Only the power of narrative can reignite our compassion and capacity for alarm.

A deeply researched work of creative non-fiction, these eight lyrical stories reveal the complexity, beauty and fragility of animal lives in a world dominated by humans – a contemporary twist on classics like Watership Down and Tarka the Otter. The natural world is under siege. We’re tired of the reportage: seals drowned in nets, bone-dead coral, thousand-acre fields of genetically modified maize. We’re bored and in denial.

A fox, grown strong on pepperoni pizza from the dustbins of the East End, dances along a railway track towards Essex, the territory of wild foxes and wilder huntsmen.

An orca, mourning the loss of her mother in a valley west of Skye, knows that she must now lead the pod as matriarch. She swims again through her childhood, thinking about the old ways, the old roads, laid down thousands of years ago. But the old roads aren't so easy now.

At moonrise in a West Country river, an otter floats slowly downstream. The tide, though it pushes him landwards when it exhales, seems to pull him out when it inhales. He turns on his back. He can see the stars clearly for the first time and wonders if he can swim to them.

The wild has never stopped waiting. It has only ever been in exile, right under our noses, waiting to confound, outrage and re-enchant.

"Charles Foster is the most original voice in nature writing today - funny, urgent, poetic, philosophical and deeply moving. These shape-shifting, illuminating stories send us into the souls of other animals, bequeathing them personhood and giving us precious enlightenment and, hopefully, the inspiration to take action." ~ Patrick Barkham, author of Wild Green Wonders