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Vendor
Liepman Literary Agency
Marc Koralnik
Original language
English

HOW FAR THE LIGHT REACHES

Sabrina Imbler

The Soul of an Octopus meets The Empathy Exams and Long Live the Tribe of the Fatherless Girls.
How Far the Light Reaches is an utterly original, lyrical collection of essays about the ocean and what its creatures can tell us about human empathy and survival. Each essay contains a profile of a marine animal, ranging from rare species that have never been photographed such as the yeti crab to ordinary ones such as the goldfish. In each essay, Imbler investigates the ways different species of marine life demonstrate strength and resilience in order to illuminate and to inspire her own.

"This is a miraculous, transcendental book. Across these essays, Imbler has choreographed a dance of metaphor between the wonders of the ocean's creatures and the poignancy of human experience, each enriching the other in surprising and profound ways. To write with such grace, skill, and wisdom would be impressive enough; to have done so in their first major work is truly breathtaking. Sabrina Imbler is a generational talent, and this book is a gift to us all." — ED YONG, New York Times Bestselling author of I Contain Multitudes

A queer, mixed race writer working in a largely white, male field, science and conservation journalist Sabrina Imbler has always been drawn to the mystery of life in the sea, and particularly to creatures living in hostile or remote environments. Each essay in their debut collection profiles one such creature: the mother octopus who starves herself while watching over her eggs, the Chinese sturgeon whose migration route has been decimated by pollution and dams, the bizarre Bobbitt worm (named after Lorena) and other uncanny creatures lurking in the deep ocean, far below where the light reaches. Fusing genres to create a new kind of essay, Imbler's debut collection weaves the wonders of marine biology with stories of their own family and coming of age, implicitly connecting endangered sea life to marginalized human communities and asking how they and we adapt, survive, and care for each other.

A staff writer at Atlas Obscura, Sabrina Imbler is a mixed Chinese-American queer essayist and a scientific journalist. In April 2020, her first chapbook, Dyke (geology) will be published through Black Lawrence Press. Praised by The New York Times best-selling authors Kristen Arnett and Alexander Chee, Dyke (geology) was awarded the editor's choice for the Fall 2018 Black River Chapbook Competition. A 2019 Margins Fellow at the Asian American Writers Workshop, Imbler received the 2018 Yi Dae Up Fellowship in Nonfiction for the Jack Jones Literary Arts Retreat and the inaugural Jane Hoppen residency at Paragraph. She spoke at the National Association of Science Writers' conference, ScienceWriters2018, on the panel “Raising Your Voice: Using Essay Techniques in Science Writing.” Her essays and reporting have appeared in various publications, including Catapult, Gay Magazine, Medium, Grist, Audubon, Nautilus, Scientific American, and The Week among others.
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Published 2022-12-01 by Little Brown

Comments

“Imbler's ability to balance illuminating science journalism with candid personal revelation is impressive, and the mesmerizing glints of lyricism are a treat. This intimate deep dive will leave readers eager to see where Imbler goes next.”

Marabout

“Sabrina Imbler's latest book mingles memoir and marine biology in a tender, lucid look at the author's life refracted through the deep sea. Their essays' mesmerizing descriptions of the often mysterious lives of aquatic animals also serve as portals of inquiry into Imbler's life on land These graceful cross-species analyses illuminate the joys and responsibilities we have as ‘creatures with a complex brain.'”

Chatto & Windus

“Elegant, thought-provoking comparisons between aspects of identity and the trials of deep-sea creatures.”

“Imbler tells an intimate story about their life as a queer, mixed-race science writer. How Far the Light Reaches is a truly unique collection of essays about ocean life as it pertains to the author's own story.”

“Interrogating how creatures in some of earth's most hostile, remote environments—much like society's marginalized communities—continue to adapt and persist, Imbler pulls off an impressive feat: a book about the majestic, bewildering undersea world that also happens to be deeply human.”

“How Far The Light Reaches is more than illuminating; it is incandescent Imbler's prose is probing and nimble, taking the reader on unexpected journeys and bringing a jolt of energy to the realm of science writing”

“In staggeringly gorgeous prose, science journalist Sabrina Imbler tracks their evolution as a queer, mixed race person struggling with assimilation, gender identity, family dynamics and what it means to live in a society that rewards homogeneity by interweaving their research on sea creatures with their deeply personal journey. This transcendent book will break your heart and put it back together in new configurations, and you might just learn something too.”

“Imbler's new book of essays, How Far the Light Reaches: A Life in Ten Sea Creatures, ventures further into their trademark exploration of deep-sea life that's both scientific and figurative within the context of Imbler's personal coming-of-age—turning a jaunt below the waves into a lyrical consideration of alternative models of survival.”

“Sabrina Imbler's work elegantly blends queer sensibility and science, from biology to geology to marine science Imbler blends personal history with the most fascinating writing on sea creatures living in remote and deep areas of the ocean. Metaphors abound around family, community, queerness, and survival; this book is another jewel in the crown of Imbler's incredible work.”

“Imbler, a science journalist, shines a light on some of the ocean's most delightful and overlooked creatures Along the way, the author draws connections between these fascinating animals and our own needs and desires — for safety, family and more.”