Gareth E. Rees – författare

LONGLISTED FOR RSL ONDAATJE PRIZE 2021'Terrific... Britain's urban landscape is just as freighted with myth and mystery as its castles and ancient monuments and [Rees] proves it by unearthing a treasure trove of riveting stories.' - Sunday Times, Best Books of the Year, 2020-----There is a Britain that exists outside of the official histories and guidebooks - places that lie on the margins, left behind. A Britain in the cracks of the urban facade where unexpected life can flourish. Welcome to UNOFFICIAL BRITAIN.This is a land of industrial estates, factories and electricity pylons, of motorways and ring roads, of hospitals and housing estates, of roundabouts and flyovers.Places where modern life speeds past but where people and stories nevertheless collect. Places where human dramas play out: stories of love, violence, fear, boredom and artistic expression. Places of ghost sightings, first kisses, experiments with drugs, refuges for the homeless, hangouts for the outcasts.Struck by the power of these stories and experiences, Gareth E. Rees set out to explore these spaces and the essential part they have played in the history and geography of our isles. Though mundane and neglected, they can be as powerfully influential in our lives, and imaginations, as any picture postcard tourist destination.'Unexpected and fascinating' - Melissa Harrison, author of The Stubborn Light of Things'The mythical and the municipal collide in a weirdly compelling tour of Britain's built environment.' - Financial Times

‘A fascinating if stark warning about human hubris in ignoring our place in nature’ New ScientistTravel through drowned forests, vanished villages and sinking cities: the lost lands of our past, present – and future. ‘A rich, haunting account of lost lands and vanished futures.' Professor David Farrier, author of Footprints: In Search of Future Fossils  From Stone Age lands that slipped beneath the English Channel to the rapid inundation of New Orleans, Gareth E. Rees explores stories of flooded places from the past – and those disappearing before our eyes. The places lost to the eternally shifting boundaries between water and land continue to have a powerful emotional resonance today. Their uncertain features emerge to haunt us, briefly, when the moon draws back the tide to reveal a spire or a tree stump. And, imbued with myths and warnings from the past, these underwater worlds can also teach us important lessons about the unavoidability of change, the ebb and flow of Earth’s natural cycles, and the folly of trying to control them. Sunken Lands peels back the layers of silt, sea and mythology to reveal what our submerged past can tell us about our imminent future as rising sea levels transform our planet once more. Praise for Sunken Lands ‘An evocative and essential guide to disappeared places and difficult futures.’ Will Wiles, author of Plume ‘A beguiling exploration of lost worlds beneath the sea’ Merlin Coverley, author of The Art of Wandering    ‘A reassuring perspective on the Anthropocene: the ebb and flow of civilisations, the inevitability of change and our capacity for renewal. Thoughtful and necessary writing.’ Sonia Overall, author of Heavy Time

Cocker spaniel by his side, Gareth E. Rees wanders the marshes of Hackney, Leyton, and Walthamstow, avoiding his family and the pressures of life.He discovers a lost world of Victorian filter plants, ancient grazing lands, dead toy factories and tidal rivers on the edgelands of a rapidly changing city.As strange tales of bears, crocodiles, magic narrowboats, and apocalyptic tribes begin to manifest, Rees embarks on a psychedelic journey across time and into the dark heart of London itself.First published by Influx Press in 2013, Marshland is a deep map of the east London marshes where nothing it as it seems, blending local history, folklore, and weird fiction in a genre-straddling classic of contemporary place writingThis fully revised and expanded 2024 edition features brand-new material and never before-seen photographs from the author’s archive.

LONGLISTED FOR RSL ONDAATJE PRIZE 2021'Terrific... Britain's urban landscape is just as freighted with myth and mystery as its castles and ancient monuments and [Rees] proves it by unearthing a treasure trove of riveting stories.' - Sunday Times, Best Books of the Year, 2020-----There is a Britain that exists outside of the official histories and guidebooks - places that lie on the margins, left behind. A Britain in the cracks of the urban facade where unexpected life can flourish. Welcome to UNOFFICIAL BRITAIN.This is a land of industrial estates, factories and electricity pylons, of motorways and ring roads, of hospitals and housing estates, of roundabouts and flyovers.Places where modern life speeds past but where people and stories nevertheless collect. Places where human dramas play out: stories of love, violence, fear, boredom and artistic expression. Places of ghost sightings, first kisses, experiments with drugs, refuges for the homeless, hangouts for the outcasts.Struck by the power of these stories and experiences, Gareth E. Rees set out to explore these spaces and the essential part they have played in the history and geography of our isles. Though mundane and neglected, they can be as powerfully influential in our lives, and imaginations, as any picture postcard tourist destination.'Unexpected and fascinating' - Melissa Harrison, author of The Stubborn Light of Things'The mythical and the municipal collide in a weirdly compelling tour of Britain's built environment.' - Financial Times