Conville & Walsh
literary agency
Otter Country
- Author: Miriam Darlington
- Category: Non-fiction Animals / Environment Narrative
- Publisher: Granta
- Pub date: 6 September 2012
- Length: 368 pages
About Otter Country
Wild otter. Even the animal’s name calls up images of mysterious, watery landscapes, darkness, ferocity and wonder. The lithe shape, soft pelt, and elusive lifestyle of this iconic predator have attracted a deep longing and admiration within humans, and inspired some of the most enduring nature poetry and prose of the twentieth century. What is it about the wild otter that attracts the gaze and melts the heart? How has an animal that was demonised for centuries as vermin now come to attract so much sympathy that it has become an emblem of nature conservation?
OTTER COUNTRY attempts to answer some of these questions. It is a journey, and a pilgrimage to the wild places, to the watery edges of our coasts, our rivers and moorland bogs where the otter lives, and an elucidation of the natural history and habits of this attractive animal. It is also a very personal journey, a poetic meditation upon Miriam’s own life-long connection to the animal. Having read ‘Tarka’, and later ‘Ring of Bright Water’, Miriam realised she had fallen in love with a creature that was perilously close to extinction in this country. Looking at her own discoveries about the otter through literature and the early nature writers like Henry Williamson, Ted Hughes and Gavin Maxwell the narrative explores how these writings worked upon our collective human imagination and brought us to the rescue of something that was nearly lost.
OTTER COUNTRY journeys inward, to explore the deeper topography of our connection to this creature and to wild nature itself. It takes us into the real world the otter inhabits today, and shows how this wily animal has adapted and survived, with the aid of our increased sensitivity to its needs and wellbeing. The journey tracks otters through wild places to urban edgelands, through road-filled counties, to the ditches and marshes that surround our towns and cities, in a search to find how nature has a will to survive, and what it is that makes us want to preserve it.
About the Author
Miriam Darlington was born and brought up in Lewes, Sussex. She lived and worked in France for two years, then studied at Sussex University. On graduating she wrote a teen-novel, then studied for an MA in children’s literature at the Roehampton Institute, and later gained a PGCE to teach in secondary school. She taught French and English for 12 years whilst still writing poetry and prose, before becoming a full-time writer in 2007.
A prize-winning poet, she gives readings and workshops at literary festivals and events, and has one full collection of poetry, Windfall which was published by Oversteps Books in 2008. She has written a book for young children, Footprints in the Sand, an ecological tale about rivers. In 2009 she gained funding to complete a book on otters in conjunction with a PhD at Exeter University. She writes for The Countryman magazine, Resurgence and Archipelago, edited by Prof Andrew McNeillie. She lives in Devon with two children, one dog, two cats, four chickens and one husband.