University Libraries Promotion and Tenure Recognition

Beatriz Rivera-Barnes associate professor of Spanish

Book Title: The Burning Season

Author: Andrew Revkin

Selection Statement:

I greatly admire this type of journalism. Moreover, I have consulted Revkin's book time and again in my research on ecocriticism. Most importantly, it is in Revkin's book that I found the title for my fourth novel, When a Tree Falls. There is a quote from The Burning Season in my novel, that is to be published in 2010. It is on page 29,


"When a Tree Falls it can create in microcosm the same kind of disruption caused by a strong storm. Such tree falls may be a crucial element in shaping the mix of species in the forest [...] The overall effect is that the forest is perpetually off kilter, in a continual state of recovery but never quite returning to some inanimate stateā€”a condition that opens up opportunities and lets no organism settle too comfortably into a static niche."


Year: 2009