The New Wilderness: SHORTLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE 2020 - Hardcover

Cook, Diane

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 178607821X ISBN 13: 9781786078216

Publisher: Oneworld Publications, 2020

Synopsis

 

'THE ENVIRONMENTAL NOVEL OF OUR TIMES.' Lemn Sissay, Booker Prize judge

From a critically acclaimed author comes a searing novel about maternal love pushed to the brink by environmental crisis

'Brutal and beautiful in equal measure' (Emily St. John Mandel)

 

Bea's daughter, Agnes, is slowly wasting away, her lungs ravaged by the smog and pollution of the overpopulated metropolis they call home.

The only alternative is to build a life in the vast expanse of untamed land known as The Wilderness State. No one has been allowed to venture here before. That is all about to change. But as Bea soon discovers, saving her daughter's life might mean losing her in ways she hadn't foreseen.

Passionate and exhilarating, The New Wilderness is the story of a mother's fight to save her daughter in a world she can no longer call her own.

Longlisted for the DUBLIN Literary Award 2022 * A Guardian Best Science Fiction Book of the Year * A 'Best Book of the Year 2020' according to BBC Culture * An Irish Times Best Debut Fiction of 2020

 

About this title

About the Author

Diane Cook is a novelist and short story writer. Her collection, Man v. Nature (Oneworld, 2015), was shortlisted for the Guardian First Book Award and the L.A. Times Book Prize. Her stories have appeared in Harper's, Tin House and Granta, and been anthologised in Best American Short Stories. Her debut novel The New Wilderness was shortlisted for the 2020 Booker Prize. She lives in Brooklyn.

From the Back Cover

Bea's five-year-old daughter, Agnes, is slowly wasting away. The smog and pollution of the overdeveloped, overpopulated metropolis they call home is ravaging her lungs. Bea knows she cannot stay in the City, but there is only one alternative: The Wilderness State. Mankind has never been allowed to venture into this vast expanse of untamed land. Until now. Bea and Agnes join eighteen other volunteers who agree to take part in a radical experiment. They must slowly learn how to live in the unpredictable, often dangerous Wilderness, leaving no trace on their surroundings in their quest to survive. But as Agnes embraces this new existence, Bea realises that saving her daughter's life might mean losing her in ways she hadn't foreseen. At once a blazing lament of our contempt for nature and a deeply humane portrayal of motherhood, The New Wilderness is an extraordinary, urgent novel from a celebrated new literary voice.

Edition details

• Publisher: Oneworld Publications
• Publication date: 2020
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 178607821X
• ISBN 13: 9781786078216
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 416