Feral Borough

Set in the urban pastoral of an East London postcode, Feral Borough asks what it means to call a place home, and how best to share that home with its non-human inhabitants. Meryl Pugh reimagines the wild as 'feral', recording the fauna and flora of Leytonstone in prose as incisive as it is lyrical.

Here, on the edge of the city, red kite and parakeets thrive alongside bluebell and yarrow, a muntjac deer is glimpsed in the undergrowth, and an escaped boa constrictor appears on the High Road. Part herbarium, part bestiary and part memoir, this is a subtle, captivating exploration of an overlooked urban landscape teeming with unexpected life.

Pugh explores the effects of loss, and lockdown, on human well-being, conjuring the local urban environment as a site for healing and connection – a reminder that nowhere, however urban, is without nature, and that the intricate web of life continues to shape and change us.