Karen Thornber. Ecoambiguity: Environmental Crises and East Asian Literatures. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2012 [Book review]

As a key figure in world literature, comparative literature and East Asian studies, Karen Thornber’s book Ecoambiguity draws on all these disciplines to provide an ecological reading of works from China, Korea, Japan and Taiwan, with a focus on ecodegradation. While written to be understandable by English speakers, the book includes enough direct quotations from the novels, short stories and poems discussed that those with knowledge of the original languages these works are written in have the opportunity to engage with the texts on a deeper level. The book also allows for multiple audiences, giving enough background information that those new to East Asian studies or ecocriticism are not excluded, but those with an understanding of the fields are given enough direction that they can skip the historical overviews.