Book
Two trees make a forest : in search of my family's past among Taiwan's mountains and coasts / Jessica J. Lee.
After unearthing a hidden memoir of her grandfather's life, Jessica J. Lee seeks to piece together the fragments of her family's history as they moved from China to Taiwan, and then on to Canada. But as she navigates the tumultuous terrain of Taiwan, Lee finds herself having to traverse fissures in language, memory, and history, as she searches for the pieces of her family left behind. Lee was awarded the 2019 RBC Taylor Prize Emerge Writer Award. She is originally from London, ON.
Record details
- ISBN: 9780735239579 (trade paperback)
- Physical Description: xviii, 282 pages ; 21 cm
- Publisher: Toronto : Hamish Hamilton, 2020.
Search for related items by subject
| Subject: | Lee, Jessica J., 1986- > Homes and haunts > Taiwan. Lee, Jessica J., 1986- > Family. Emigration and immigration > Social aspects > Taiwan. Landscapes > Taiwan. |
Available copies
- 1 of 1 copy available at Tsuga Consortium.
Holds
- 0 current holds with 1 total copy.
Show Only Available Copies
| Location | Call Number / Copy Notes | Barcode | Shelving Location | Status | Due Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cookstown Branch | 951.24905092 Lee | 31681010220408 | NONFICPBK | Available | - |
Electronic resources
https://www.innisfilidealab.ca/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Two-Trees-Make-a-Forest-Jessica-J.-Lee.pdf
- Book Club Discussion Guide
- Penguin Putnam
NATIONAL BESTSELLER
WINNER of the 2021 Banff Mountain Book Prize in Adventure Travel
WINNER of the 2020 Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Non-Fiction Prize
Shortlisted for the 2021Â Edna Staebler Award for Creative Non-Fiction
Shortlisted for the Boardman Tasker Prize for Mountain Literature
Shortlisted for Canada Reads 2021
On CBCâs list of âthe best Canadian nonfiction of 2020â
An exhilarating, anti-colonial reclamation of nature writing and memoir, rooted in the forests and flatlands of Taiwan from the winner of the RBC Taylor Prize for Emerging Writers
"Two Trees Make a Forest is a finely faceted meditation on memory, love, landscapeâand finding a home in language. Its short, shining sections tilt yearningly toward one another; in form as well as content, this is a beautiful book about the distance between people and between places, and the means of their bridging." âRobert Macfarlane, author of Underland
A chance discovery of letters written by her immigrant grandfather leads Jessica J. Lee to her ancestral homeland, Taiwan. There, she seeks his story while growing closer to the land he knew.
Lee hikes mountains home to Formosan flamecrests, birds found nowhere else on earth, and swims in a lake of drowned cedars. She bikes flatlands where spoonbills alight by fish farms, and learns about a tree whose fruit can float in the ocean for years, awaiting landfall. Throughout, Lee unearths surprising parallels between the natural and human stories that have shaped her family and their beloved island. Joyously attentive to the natural world, Lee also turns a critical gaze upon colonialist explorers who mapped the land and named plants, relying on and often effacing the labor and knowledge of local communities.
Two Trees Make a Forest is a genre-shattering book encompassing history, travel, nature, and memoir, an extraordinary narrative showing how geographical forces are interlaced with our family stories.
