The Small Heart of Things - (The Sue William Silverman Prize for Creative Nonfiction) by Julian Hoffman (Paperback)

About the Book

Hoffman intimately examines the myriad ways in which connections to the natural world can be deepened through an equality of perception. The narrative spans the common--and often contested--ground that supports human and natural communities alike, seeking the unsung stories that sustain us.

Book Synopsis

In The Small Heart of Things, Julian Hoffman intimately examines the myriad ways in which connections to the natural world can be deepened through an equality of perception, whether it's a caterpillar carrying its house of leaves, transhumant shepherds ranging high mountain pastures, a quail taking cover on an empty steppe, or a Turkmen family emigrating from Afghanistan to Istanbul. The narrative spans the common--and often contested--ground that supports human and natural communities alike, seeking the unsung stories that sustain us.

Guided by the belief of Rainer Maria Rilke that "everything beckons us to perceive it," Hoffman explores the area around the Prespa Lakes, the first transboundary park in the Balkans, shared by Greece, Albania, and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. From there he travels widely to regions rarely written about, exploring the idea that home is wherever we happen to be if we accord that place our close and patient attention.

The Small Heart of Things is a book about looking and listening. It incorporates travel and natural history writing that interweaves human stories with those of wild creatures. Distinguished by Hoffman's belief that through awareness, curiosity, and openness we have the potential to forge abiding relationships with a range of places, it illuminates how these many connections can teach us to be at home in the world.

Review Quotes

'To be at home in the world is to let ourselves be drawn into its embrace, ' writes Julian Hoffman in this sparkling, humane collection of essays. Something similar can be said about reading his exquisite book--we're drawn into the warmth and intimacy of his meditations. Part travel writing, part environmental witness, part celebration of the human spirit in the more-than-human world, this book guides us to a distant landscape of borders visible and invisible and of enriching change. Throughout, Hoffman is a superb tour guide: observant, knowledgeable, and deftly surprising in the connections he makes among the myriad small things he enables us to see.

--Elizabeth Dodd "author of Horizon's Lens"

Julian Hoffman's vast knowledge of the natural world is surpassed only by his deep compassion for all beings--human and otherwise--who inhabit this planet we all share. The Small Heart of Things is a big-hearted book written in prose as clear and strong as the stunningly beautiful Greek landscape it describes.

--BK Loren "author of Theft"

This writer is a seeker and seer among those who work the land within the cycles of time. He knows how to listen and not simply catalog nature, both human and wild, but create a tapestry of embodied stories born out of the intimate wisdom of sweat and hunger and an earthly intelligence. At a time when we wonder where hope resides, this is a book of faith in the natural histories of community, broken and sustained. Not only does the language honor the encountered beauties along the way, it explores a complexity of ideas that reminds us we are not strangers in the world if we remain open to awe and respectful of the tenacious spirit required to live in place. The Small Heart of Things is a book of patience.

--Terry Tempest Williams "author of Finding Beauty in a Broken World"

A sharply observed . . . collection of essays on the interrelationships of man and nature, of soul and place . . . A deeply felt book that will lead readers to other books that inspired it.

--Kirkus Reviews

About the Author

JULIAN HOFFMAN is the author of The Small Heart of Things: Being at Home in a Beckoning World (Georgia), which won the 2012 AWP Award Series for Creative Nonfiction and the National Outdoor Book Award for Natural History Literature. He was also the winner of the Terrain.org Nonfiction Prize and has written for EarthLines, Kyoto Journal, Beloit Fiction Journal, Briar Cliff Review, Flyway, Redwood Coast Review, Silk Road Review, and Southern Humanities Review. He lives in northwestern Greece.