Silence is my habitat: ecobiographical essays

Jessica White has been deaf since she was four years old. Through ecobiography, which dwells on a person’s interaction with their ecosystem and how this shapes their sense of self, she considers how deafness encouraged and moulded her relationship to the natural world. Unable to hear easily, she became observant, exploring her environments through the tactile and olfactory. In these poetic essays, she describes her responses to bodies of water, the university, the archive, the bush, and the quietened realm of the pandemic. She writes of burnt trees amidst the devastating loss of her mother. She finds a flock of deaf women writers who help her fly. White reveals that deafness, although it can bring fatigue and isolation, is also a portal to a rich, contemplative, and creative life.

This is a compelling set of essays about the ways in which the author, an academic, moves through the world.