Bella Lack spent most of 2020 speaking to young people who have been affected by the environmental crisis. This was partly for filming of the documentary Animal with primatologist Jane Goodall, which was selected for the Cannes Film Festival 2021, and in preparation of writing her debut book.
Bella was approached by Penguin publishers whilst filming the documentary. Inspired by the people that she had met during filming, Bella decided to chronicle the lives of the diverse young people on the frontlines of the environmental crisis around the world, some of them displaced, facing wildfires, droughts, enforced migration and land grabbing.
She compiled the stories into her newly-published book, The Children of the Anthropocene, which amplifies the voices of those living at the heart of the crisis.
Bella says, ‘My generation are growing up in a world which
has been fundamentally altered at the hands of humans. The reader of this book is also a writer of the future of humanity, and I hope the stories contained within will inspire them to fulfil that role.’
The book, with a foreword by Greta Thunberg, has just become available for pre-order. It can be purchased from Waterstones here.
This is an incredibly impressive achievement. Well done, Bella! We look forward to reading the book when it is released on 30 June.
