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Over three visits, Martin meets Aphrodite, Lefteris, Manuel, Zinovia, and others whose lives are bound to the sea. Through their stories, she uncovers the rise and fall of the sponge trade and its deep entanglement with environmental devastation. The islands bear the scars of war, both human and ecological. And yet, despite all of this, the Aegean remains a glory of blue. For all of its plunder, the sea is still luminous and alive, and conversations with the islanders keep returning to the heart.
On the Sponge Islands brings together natural history and ecosocial reckoning. Martin’s lyrical, searching prose is rich in dialogue, extraordinary characters, and curious tales. While the devastation of the Aegean seabed may mirror the wider ecological catastrophe, the green renewal taking root on some of the islands is an embodiment of hope. This is a story of extinction and resilience, of loss and restoration. It reminds us that it may not be too late—not yet.
"A work of singular focus, the scholarly memoir On the Sponge Islands includes illuminating bits of natural history alongside its accounts of a tour through the Greek sponge trade."
— Karen Rigby, Foreword"The author mixes this story with her own observations of the region’s sunkissed charms, as well as its more ominous signs of decrepitude, cruelty, and inner turmoil."
— Publishers Weekly
“Sponges famously can regenerate from a few cells, a fragment, when almost all has been lost. With humility, curiosity, and compassion, Martin considers how communities regenerate from the devastation and transformations of war, migration, exile, and technological change; and how our collective and personal histories both sever and bind.”
— Anne Michaels, author of Fugitive Pieces“A fascinating and troubling tale of the human relationship with ‘the living mind of the sea,’ superbly researched and told with empathy and insight. I will never look at a sponge, or any other harvested sea being, in the same way again.”
— Kapka Kassabova, author of Border: A Journey to the Edge of Europe
“What does it mean to remember a sea? On the Sponge Islands understands how the death of a marine ecosystem and the fading of a community’s memory are the same catastrophe, registered at different depths. This is a book of marvelous lyricism and rigorous thought about what we have taken from the sea and what might yet remain. Julia Martin is a writer of rare precision, and this is her most far-reaching work.”
— Hedley Twidle, author of Show Me the Place