The Word for World Is Water

Meditative reflections on the divinity of water and the varied ecosystems it animates, from the peat bogs in the Northern Baltic to the frozen mountainscapes of the Himalayas

Inspired by Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Word for World Is Forest, this book reimagines water as a cosmological force―shaping, resisting and sustaining worlds. Gathering artists, thinkers and activists from across the globe, it explores diverse liquid bodies, such as the icy rivers in Canada, the peat bogs in the Northern Baltic, the wetlands of Goa and the frozen mountainscapes of Himalayas. Though united by their Indigenous, ecological and decolonial perspectives, each author offers a distinct mode of articulation, be it investigative essay, poetic reportage, fieldwork diary, visual poetry, ritual score or annotated drawing. Together, the texts posit water as archive, kin and living territory―a medium of transformation, resistance and survival.