Synopses & Reviews
Crowded, hot, subject to violent swings in climate, with a government unable or unwilling to face the most vital challenges, the rich and poor increasingly living in worlds apart; for most of the world, this picture is of a possible future. For India, it is the very real present.
In this lyrical exploration of life, loss, and survival, Meera Subramanian travels in search of the ordinary people and microenterprises determined to revive India’s ravaged natural world: an engineer-turned-farmer brings organic food to Indian plates; villagers resuscitate a river run dry; cook stove designers persist on the quest for a smokeless fire; biologists bring vultures back from the brink of extinction; and in Bihar, one of India’s most impoverished states, a bold young woman teaches adolescents the fundamentals of sexual health. While investigating these five environmental challenges, Subramanian discovers the stories that renew hope for a nation with the potential to lead India and the planet into a sustainable and prosperous future.
Review
“This is investigative journalism as story: fact-filled but
optimistic, rueful and inviting. The author writes with warm
intelligence, and she challenges readers.…In each chapter, as well,
Subramanian offers specific antidotes as anecdotes, narrating in a
measured, conversational, welcoming voice....Each of the stories is
comprehensive while nimble, as well as provocative. Promising
prescriptions to five of India's baneful environmental cases — right
thinking and accusatory in all the right places.” Kirkus Reviews
Review
"Meera Subramanian’s A River Runs Again tells five tales of
India at the crossroads — a filigree of cautionary and celebratory
stories — voiced with dignified passion...Subramanian navigates these
rough waters between baneful emergencies and precarious signs of
enlightened attitudes with the right degree of cautious optimism." Christian Science Monitor
Review
“Although its narrative is lyrical and heartfelt, the book is also an
ode to science — good science that respects natural processes rather than
seeking to subjugate them…Subramanian, whose fluid writing has appeared
in everything from the journal Nature to The Wall Street Journal,
shows a rare gift in her ability to combine personal but uncontrived
field reporting with the cultural sensitivity of a returning daughter of
India and the critical faculties of someone confident in the science.” New Scientist
About the Author
Meera Subramanian is an award-winning journalist whose work has been published in New York Times, Nature, Virginia Quarterly Review, Orion,
and elsewhere. She is an editor for Killing the Buddha and earned her
graduate degree in journalism from New York University. Subramanian
received a Fulbright-Nehru Senior Research Fellowship for her work on A River Runs Again. She lives on Cape Cod in Massachusetts and can be found at meerasub.org and @meeratweets.