CONVERSATIONS WITH BIRDS
“Birds are my almanac. They tune me into the seasons, and into myself.”
So begins this lively collection of essays by acclaimed filmmaker and novelist Priyanka Kumar. Growing up at the feet of the Himalayas in northern India, Kumar took for granted her immersion in a lush natural world. After moving to North America as a teenager, she found herself increasingly distanced from more than human life, and discouraged by the civilization she saw contributing to its destruction. It was only in her twenties, living in Los Angeles and working on films, that she began to rediscover her place in the landscape — and in the cosmos — by way of watching birds.
“Birds are my almanac. They tune me into the seasons, and into myself.”
So begins this lively collection of essays by acclaimed filmmaker and novelist Priyanka Kumar. Growing up at the feet of the Himalayas in northern India, Kumar took for granted her immersion in a lush natural world. After moving to North America as a teenager, she found herself increasingly distanced from more than human life, and discouraged by the civilization she saw contributing to its destruction. It was only in her twenties, living in Los Angeles and working on films, that she began to rediscover her place in the landscape — and in the cosmos — by way of watching birds.
Tracing her movements across the American West, this stirring collection of essays brings the avian world richly to life. Kumar’s perspective is not that of a list keeper, counting and cataloguing species. Rather, from the mango-colored western tanager that rescues her from a bout of altitude sickness in Sequoia National Park to ancient sandhill cranes in the Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge, and from the snowy plovers building shallow nests with bits of shell and grass to the white-breasted nuthatch that regularly visits the apricot tree behind her family’s casita in Sante Fe, for Kumar, birds “become a portal to a more vivid, enchanted world.”
At a time when climate change, habitat loss, and the reckless use of pesticides are causing widespread extinction of species, Kumar’s reflections on these messengers from our distant past and harbingers of our future offer luminous evidence of her suggestion that “seeds of transformation lie dormant in all of our hearts. Sometimes it just takes the right bird to awaken us.”
- Milkweed Editions
- Hardcover
- November 2022
- 296 Pages
- 9781571313997
Buy the Book
$28.00
About Priyanka Kumar
Priyanka Kumar is the author of Conversations with Birds. Her essays and criticism appear in The New York Times, The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Review of Books, The Huffington Post, and High Country News. She is a recipient of the Aldo & Estella Leopold Writing Residency, an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Award, a New Mexico/New Visions Governor’s Award, a Canada Council for the Arts Grant, an Ontario Arts Council Literary Award, and an Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences Fellowship. A graduate of the University of Southern California’s School of Cinematic Arts and an alumna of the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, Kumar wrote, directed and produced the feature documentary The Song of the Little Road, starring Martin Scorsese and Ravi Shankar. Kumar has taught at the University of California Santa Cruz and the University of Southern California, and serves on the Board of Directors at the Leopold Writing Program.
Praise
“Priyanka Kumar charts the life-changing surprise and splendor that birds can bring. They open the heart. They widen the soul.”—Sy Montgomery, author of The Soul of an Octopus
“In this collection of elegant and evocative essays, a novelist reflects on the beauty and significance of birds, those animals that “become a portal to a more vivid, enchanted world.” —New York Times
“A delightful ode to birds and a powerful defense of the planet we share with them…. An eloquent depiction of how birding engenders a deep love of our ecosystems and a more profound understanding of ourselves.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
“Kumar has the most unique talent. She is one of the most gifted writers I know. Her storytelling gifts make all of us sit up and take notice.” —Joan Tewkesbury, screenwriter of Nashville
“This isn’t just a book about birds, it’s a look at the joy and curiosity we feel when we build connections with the natural world…. With gorgeously descriptive language, (Kumar) shares her fascinating discoveries about birds and uses them as a gateway to explore topics like climate change, racism, and spirituality. For anyone feeling lost in our increasingly complicated human world, Conversations With Birds is just the compass you need.”—Apple, November Best Books of the Month
“You don’t need to be a birder to get caught up in [Kumar’s] story; be warned you will likely become one before you are through.” —Pete Dunne, author of Pete Dunne on Birdwatching
“[Kumar’s] prose flows easily, like a bird taking flight. A pure delight to read.” —Teresa Dovalpage, author of A Girl like Che Guevara