Democracy Dies in Darkness
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‘Braiding Sweetgrass’ has gone from surprise hit to juggernaut bestseller

Robin Wall Kimmerer, just named the recipient of a MacArthur ‘genius grant,’ weaves Indigenous wisdom with her scientific training and says that a ‘sense of not belonging here contributes to the way we treat the land’

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Robin Wall Kimmerer’s “Braiding Sweetgrass,” which combines Indigenous wisdom and scientific knowledge, first hit the bestseller list in February 2020. “If the world is listening, I have a responsibility to speak,” she says. (Rosem Morton for The Washington Post)
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GETTYSBURG, Pa. — A dozen years ago, Robin Wall Kimmerer submitted an unsolicited manuscript to Milkweed, a nonprofit independent press in Minneapolis. It was a brick of about 750 pages.

“I sent it out without any confidence that anyone would want to read such a thing,” says Kimmerer, 69. “I didn’t have an agent. I’m not a professional writer. I’m a botanist. But it was something that I felt I really wanted to say.”

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