Cultural/Regional

The Hollow Middle, John Popielaski

Author: © John Popielaski Type: Fiction Novel Publisher/Ordering: Unsolicited Press Publication Date: December 4, 2018 Author Links: Author website Back to the Dragonfly Library Book Description: The primary narrative thread, Albert seeking a more authentic off-the-grid life in Maine, attempts to subvert that archetypal storyline of someone fleeing to the woods to escape […]

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No Entry, Gila Green

Click here to return to the series In September, we look at another YA fiction novel–and yet another novel set in South Africa. Thanks to Stormbird Press and author Gila Green for the interview and essay. Stormbird Press, one of our affiliates, is a new publisher in Australia. As an […]

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The Black Dwarves of the Good Little Bay, Varun Thomas Mathew

The sea has invaded its boundaries, and its inhabitants reside in a towering structure called the Bombadrome, which hovers above the barren land. Theirs is an artificially equated society; they lead technologically directed lives; they have no memory of the past. They don’t remember that this place was once called […]

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Memory Police, Yōko Ogawa

The book is practically a novelization of German pastor Martin Niemoller’s post-World War II poem “First they came …,” but the environmental effects of the disappearances of things like roses and fruit make Ogawa’s prose feel applicable not just to political atrocities like genocide but to climate change or any […]

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The Gulf, Belle Boggs

With sharp humor and deep empathy, The Gulf is a memorable debut novel in which Belle Boggs plumbs the troubled waters dividing America. -Goodreads Goodreads Reviews Back to GoodReads

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Where the River Runs Gold, Sita Brahmachari

Click here to return to the series This month we look at Sita Brahmachari’s novel Where the River Runs Gold (Waterstones, July 2019), which takes place in an everyland, according to the author. But she told me that Meteore mountain–meaning between earth and sky–was inspired by Meteora in Greece and […]

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Dark Constellations, Pola Oloixarac

Argentinian Pola Oloixarac’s novel investigates humanity’s quest for knowledge and control, hurtling from the 19th century mania for scientific classification to present-day mass surveillance and the next steps in human evolution. Goodreads Reviews Back to GoodReads

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Latitudes of Longing, Shubhangi Swarup

A recent take on the state of writing argues that novelists have been complicit in maintaining silence around global warming and climate change…They have obsessed over everyday life, but overlooked larger units of time and place. In the aftermath of such a critique of the genre of the novel, Shubhangi […]

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Sisyphean, Dempow Torishima

With this stellar debut volume–a “mosaic novel” depicting a world of infinite biomorphic perversity that feels at once surreal yet authentic; estranging yet welcoming; otherwordly yet familiar–Dempow Torishima gives the world a book of fantastika with very few literary precedents. –Paul Di Filippo, Lotus Mag …Frankly, this is in line […]

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Dyschronia, Jennifer Mills

Jennifer Mills’ Dyschronia has climate at its core. In the book, the sea around the small town of Clapstone vanishes. Sam, her main character, has a unique sense of time: she can see into the future, but is she predicting what is going to happen or is she ensuring that […]

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The Old Drift, Namwali Serpell

On the banks of the Zambezi River, a few miles from the majestic Victoria Falls, there was once a colonial settlement called The Old Drift. Here begins the story of a small African nation, told by a swarm-like chorus that calls itself man’s greatest nemesis. Goodreads Reviews Back to GoodReads

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Oval, Elvia Wilk

Wilk entwines a classical sensibility with biological determinism—she almost suggests that humans have reached the final phase of a natural decomposition process, like cells programmed to grow and then atrophy. –The New Yorker In the near future, Berlin’s real estate is being flipped in the name of “sustainability,” only to […]

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The Suicide Season

Author: © Jeremy Gadd Publication Date: April 15, 2019 Publisher and Ordering: Stormbird Press Type: Fiction Social Media: Facebook Back to the Dragonfly Library Book Blurb When demoralised Warren Yeats abandons his failing business, his ex-wife and his city lifestyle to embark on a road trip with more twists and […]

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Daughter of Bad Times, Rohan Wilson

Rin Braden believes the great love of her life, Yamaan Ali Umair, died in an environmental disaster that destroyed the Maldives, the island nation where he lived. It leaves her distraught and close to giving up on life. But Yamaan has survived. He turns up in Eaglehawk Migrant Training Centre […]

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Strangers and Cousins, Leah Hager Cohen

Zoning, pollution, racism, anti-Semitism — these are heavy themes that could easily overwhelm “Strangers and Cousins” or, worse, look tritely exploited by it. But that’s the real artistry of Cohen’s work: her sensitive exploration of the whole range of our complicated, compromised lives. And she puts to rest the smug […]

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