What is Anastatica?

Anastatica is a lot of things. Mostly it serves as a place for me to share my writing, which has previously been lying around in odd notebooks and on scraps of paper.

It’s also a project that I hope will encourage me to keep writing consistently and allow me to connect with others with similar interests.

Who is Anastatica?

Anastatica is just me. Anastatica is an anonymous project, but my identity is no great secret.

I hope to retain a degree of separation between the art and the artist, much like any author writing in the first person is not always writing about themselves.

Why is the website called Anastatica?

I’ve been obsessed with the plant Anastatica hierochuntica ever since I saw it featured in a nature documentary as a child.

It’s a ‘resurrection plant’, found in the arid regions of the Middle East and the Sahara, which unfurls its branches to disperse seeds when it rains, even after drying up into a ball or roaming as a tumbleweed for many years.

For me it’s become a symbol a resilience and perseverance in the face of adversity.

Anastatica is also known as Rose of Jericho, and yet the 16th century botanist John Gerard wrote that ‘the coiner spoiled the name in the mint, for of all plants that have been written of, there is not any more unlike unto the Rose’, which only adds to my fascination of it.

When will the website be updated?

There will be a new publication every week. I’m working on some new projects, but for the time being this will mostly consist of works I wrote in the past.