Notting Hill Editions bags Lopez's 'mesmerising' final collection of essays

Notting Hill Editions has bagged Barry Lopez’s final collection of essays. 

Publisher Rosalind Porter acquired UK and Commonwealth rights, excluding Canada, to Embrace Fearlessly the Burning World from Peter Matson at Sterling Lord Literistic. It will publish as a paperback original on 2nd May 2023.  

The collection was the last book by Lopez, who died on 25th December 2020. The publisher said: “Embrace Fearlessly the Burning World adds indelibly to Lopez’s legacy and includes previously unpublished works, some written in the months before his death. They unspool memories both personal and political, among them tender, sometimes painful stories of his childhood in New York City and California, reports from expeditions to study animals and sea life, recollections of travels to Antarctica and other extraordinary places on earth, and meditations on finding oneself amid vast, dramatic landscapes.

“He reflects on those who taught him, including Indigenous elders and scientific mentors who sharpened his eye for the natural world, and we witness poignant returns from his travels to the sanctuary of his home in Oregon. In prose of searing candour, he reckons with the cycle of life, including his own, and – as he has done throughout his career – with the dangers the earth and its people are facing."

Porter said: “It’s always risky to describe writing as ‘spiritual’, but the experience of reading Lopez is akin to something otherworldly, even though it’s our world that is his subject. His mastery of language allows him to conjure and describe often surreal and ominous landscapes in mesmerising ways, and his genuine compassion for those he encounters lends his work a kind of authenticity that feels rare, these days. He is an absolute original.”