- Hardcover
- Used
Seller: World of Books (was SecondSale), Montgomery, IL, U.S.A.World of Books (was SecondSale)
AbeBooks seller since December 20, 2007
Condition: Used - Good
£ 4.04
Quantity: 1 available
Add to basketItem description from seller
An inventive, cacophonous novel about an Aboriginal girl living in a future world turned upside down where ancient myths exist side-by-side with present-day realities. Oblivia Ethelyne was given her name by an old woman who found her deep in the bowels of a gum tree, tattered and fragile, the victim of a brutal assault by wayward local youths. These are the years leading up to Australia s third centenary, and the woman who finds her, Bella Donna of the Champions, is a refugee from climate change wars that devastated her country in the northern hemisphere. Bella Donna takes Oblivia to live with her on an old warship in a polluted dry swamp and there she fills Oblivia s head with story upon story of swans. Fenced off from the rest of Australia by the Army, its traditional custodians left destitute, the swamp has become the world s most unknown detention camp for Indigenous Australians. When Warren Finch, the first Aboriginal president of Australia invades the swamp with his charismatic persona and the promise of salvation, Oblivia agrees to marry him, becoming First Lady, a role that has her confined to a tower in a flooded and lawless southern city. In this multilayered novel, winnter of the Australian Literature Society's Gold Medal, Wright toys with the edges of the world we live in to offer us an intimate portrait of the realities facing Aboriginal people. We meet talking monkeys, genies with doctorates, spirit-guiding swans, and a whole cast of characters drawn from myth and legend and fairy tales. Through symbolism and a dazzling linguistic dexterity the blending of words and phrases from high and low culture, from English, Aboriginal languages, French, and Latin Wright beautifully demonstrates how the power of the human imagination can set us free.…
Seller Inventory # 00104433992
- Title
- The Swan Book
- Author
- Alexis Wright
- Publisher
- Atria Books
- Publication year
- 2016
- Condition
- Good
- Binding
- Hardback
- Language
- English
- ISBN 10
- 1501124781
- ISBN 13
- 9781501124785
Oblivia Ethelyne was given her name by an old woman who found her deep in the bowels of a gum tree, tattered and fragile, the victim of a brutal assault by wayward local youths. These are the years leading up to Australia’s third centenary, and the woman who finds her, Bella Donna of the Champions, is a refugee from climate change wars that devastated her country in the northern hemisphere. Bella Donna takes Oblivia to live with her on an old warship in a polluted dry swamp and there she fills Oblivia’s head with story upon story of swans. Fenced off from the rest of Australia by the Army, its traditional custodians left destitute, the swamp has become “the world’s most unknown detention camp” for Indigenous Australians. When Warren Finch, the first Aboriginal president of Australia invades the swamp with his charismatic persona and the promise of salvation, Oblivia agrees to marry him, becoming First Lady, a role that has her confined to a tower in a flooded and lawless southern city.
In this multilayered novel, winnter of the Australian Literature Society's Gold Medal, Wright toys with the edges of the world we live in to offer us an intimate portrait of the realities facing Aboriginal people. We meet talking monkeys, genies with doctorates, spirit-guiding swans, and a whole cast of characters drawn from myth and legend and fairy tales. Through symbolism and a dazzling linguistic dexterity—the blending of words and phrases from high and low culture, from English, Aboriginal languages, French, and Latin—Wright beautifully demonstrates how the power of the human imagination can set us free.
"Synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
Review
"Astonishingly inventive."--O Magazine
"Rich with allegory and symbolism, this wild, explosive story blends the myths and legends of numerous cultures in a dystopian near future...significant and contemporary, in the style of Gloria Naylor's Mama Day (1988)." --Booklist (starred review)
"Alexis Wright's The Swan Book is hypnotic and disturbing...a very unusual book...This is definitely one of the books Sir Francis Bacon would recommend that we chew and digest."
--A Bookish Type
International Praise for The Swan Book "It is a bitter, lovely, and tragic book; and not only the author but also the publisher should be commended."--Australian Book Review
"The Swan Book might be one of the most important Australian novels yet."--Sydney Morning Herald
"Bears all the hallmarks of Wright's astonishing narrative powers: her linguistic dexterity, mashing words and phrases from high and low culture, from English, Aboriginal languages, French and Latin; her humour and scathing satire; her fierce political purpose; her genre bending; her virtuosic gift for interweaving stories on multiple levels, from the literal to the metaphoric, the folkloric and the mythic. But The Swan Book takes all these - especially the last - to new levels."--Sydney Review of Books
Praise for Carpentaria "[A] magisterial yet colloquial voice which [transforms] the oral tradition of the country's indigenous people into a swirling narrative spiked with burlesque humor and featuring a huge cast of eccentric characters."--The New York Times Book Review
"The novel opens with the implosive energy of the ancestral serpent denting-bending-creating the river and the land on which the story of the humans is to be set. It breathlessly moves ahead in time...for all the unassuming rhythm of Carpentaria, one would be foolish to not realize the literary sophistication involved."--The Telegraph, India
"Her characters have a larger-than-life grotesquerie, silled with quirky density. Her dialogue has a vernacular rip and hook. Her imagination always wants to open a space to poetry. The history she deals with is huge and terrible, but it energises her in an almost loving way."--Sydney Morning Herald
"About the title" may belong to another edition of this title.
World of Books (was SecondSale)
Montgomery, IL, U.S.A.
AbeBooks seller since December 20, 2007
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Founded in 2002, World of Books is a leading online destination for buying and selling both preloved and new books, committed to making sustainable reading accessible to all. With a mission to help people read more and waste less, World of Books offers a huge range of affordable, high-quality books — giving both new and preloved titles a second life. The company also operates World of Books – Sell Your Books, an easy-to-use platform that allows customers to trade in unwanted books for cash, helping to keep books in circulation while promoting sustainability. As a Certified B Corp, World of Books is driven by a vision to become the world’s largest and most sustainable dedicated online bookstore. The company measures its success through the positive environmental impact it creates, the value it provides to customers, and its ability to operate profitably while supporting its sustainable mission …
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