It was no way to survive the interminable heartbreak of a pandemic. I had to live each fragile day with the fullness it deserved. I had to wake up each morning and look upon this place not with aloofness, but with love.

Nushelle de Silva recounts her experiences in lockdown; how she made herself a home away from home. Both a rumination and investigation, this essay serves as an examination of what ‘home’ is and the ways in which we can appreciate and immerse ourselves in nature without assuming ownership of it.

Nushelle de Silva is an assistant professor in the Department of Art History & Music at Fordham University. She received her PhD in architectural history from MIT in 2022. Her research elicits how colonial governance has modulated visual cultural expression in the long twentieth century by following the routes, sites, repetitions, and delays of global object circulation. Her interest in the lives of wildflowers is longstanding, but this is her first foray into environmental nonfiction.

A Naturalised Citizen is one of three titles by new writers curated by Willowherb Review and the University of East Anglia, along with The Slough of Despond and Pozow. All three titles feature images by Antonia Glucksman.

ISBN 978-1-913749-52-1 / 24 pages / 184 x 130 / Illustrated / Made with Tintoretto and Arena papers.