The Country of Language

by Scott Russell Sanders

“Simple, elegant, and enduring.” — KIRKUS In The Country of Language, Sanders recalls the stories and experiences that have guided him as a writer, and speaks on behalf of a life rooted in the commonplace, in what is becoming paradoxically a sense of “at-homeness” in the natural world. Emerging from his work is the conviction that moments of interaction with the nonhuman worldwhether one is transfixed in a silent stare down with a great blue heron or listening to the voice of a creek while bombs threaten far-off countries—restore the sanity and courage needed to address the griefs of the human community. “In his usual articulate and well-crafted prose, Scott Russell Sanders continues to relate everyday and natural experiences to greater meanings. . . . His writing, he says, is his way of asking questions.” — Library Journal

Genres: Essays, Nonfiction

162 pages, Paperback

First published October 11, 1999

About the author

Scott Russell Sanders is the award-winning author of A Private History of Awe, Hunting for Hope, A Conservationist Manifesto, Dancing in Dreamtime, and two dozen other books of fiction, personal narrative, and essays. His father came from a family of cotton farmers in Mississippi, his mother from an immigrant doctor’s family in Chicago. He spent his early childhood in Tennessee and his school years in Ohio, Rhode Island, and Cambridge, England.

In his writing he is concerned with our place in nature, the practice of community, and the search for a spiritual path. He and his wife, Ruth, a biochemist, have reared two children in their hometown of Bloomington, in the hardwood hill country of southern Indiana. You can visit Scott at www.scottrussellsanders.com.

In August 2020, Counterpoint Press will publish his new collection of essays, The Way of Imagination, a reflection on healing and renewal in a time of climate disruption. He is currently at work on a collection of short stories inspired by photographs.

Reviews

[Jan Priddy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Four stars for length, but I will seek out this author again. His kindness and passion for nature and peace, and because he is only a few years older we share so many experiences.

What begins as essay becomes memoir. Sanders reveals critical learning experiences from childhood, young adulthood, and as he matures. Most often these experiences involve nature—climbing a tree or cutting down a dead tree. Discovering a luna moth at the age of nine while involuntarily tagging along on his sister's Girl Scout weekend:

"Look what Scott found," my mother said, "Isn't it magnificent?"

The girls murmured. Most of the boys I knew would have wanted to catch that moth or stick it on a pin or scare it into flight. The girls were content to look. Their voices rang with wonder, and that sound made them seem less strange.

[Daleen · Rating 4 out of 5]

SRS has quickly become one of my favorite authors.

[McKenzie Tozan · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's been a long time since I sat down and just read a book all the way through in one day--but this book by Sanders is one that inspires such an act. I read this book for the first time back in 2004, in a 10th grade Creative Writing class, during our study of memoir, and I wanted to find out more about Sanders' work. Unfortunately, the desire had to be put on hold--until my freshman year as an undergrad, in fact--at which time I discovered Sanders' personal website... and the MFA Program. Indirectly, his work became the reason I first pursued a program, and his writing is what I refer back to first, along with Dillard and King, when considering writing as a craft, as something MORE than "simply" putting words to paper. This is an important read that I expect I will continue to return to, for one reason or another, for myself, for my students and for future others.