The Year of My Awakening

Sigri Sandberg has spent much of her adult life writing about nature and the great outdoors, across a range of genres and publications.

But she has been too cowardly.

She has suppressed the fact that forests are burning, that the sea is rising, that we are up to our elbows in a climate crisis. She has ignored the fact that she, too, is part of nature – distancing herself from her own fear. In this book, she declares herself guilty of being a coward.

She writes her way into her fears, and into the facts – and crises – we are facing. What exactly is going on, and what is it doing to us?

Over the course of a year, Sigri writes from wherever she finds herself: in the north during winter, by the fjord in spring, by the sea in summer, and from the mountains in autumn. In addition to a personal narrative, the reader also encounters geological, biological, psychological, and philosophical perspectives on the problems we face.

But is it even possible to confront these urgent crises without unraveling entirely? Can we absorb the devastation without being destroyed by it? And, if so, is there a path forward?

This book seeks the answers to these questions.