Fauna

Ned Hayes’ The Eagle Tree

The Eagle Tree by Ned Hayes (Little A, 2016) Young adult contemporary fiction Review by Kimberly Christensen To say that fourteen-year-old March Wong loves trees is an understatement. He climbs multiple trees per day and can cite endless amount of information about trees, from information about their species to how […]

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Tears of the Trufflepig, Fernando A. Flores

Near future. South Texas. Narcotics are legal and there’s a new contraband on the market: ancient Olmec artifacts, shrunken indigenous heads, and filtered animals—species of animals brought back from extinction to clothe, feed, and generally amuse the very wealthy. Esteban Bellacosa has lived in the border town of MacArthur long […]

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Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead, Olga Tokarczuk

Translated by Antonia Lloyd-Jones (originally titled Prowadź swój pług przez kości umarłych). Man Booker International Prize Nominee (2019). Olga is also a Nobel prize winner in literature as well as the Nike in Poland. This tale of an elderly female eccentric investigating the murders of humans and animals in a remote forest […]

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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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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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She Would Be King, Wayétu Moore

Animals have inspired some of the most memorable moments in African storytelling. In 17th century Ethiopia, Galawdewos repeatedly relies on the appearance or the death of animals to portray Walatta Petros’ miraculous saintly power. When animals are incorporated in ritual process, the visual effect is powerful. The image of Ozidi […]

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The Orchardist’s Daughter, Karen Viggers

The theme of conservation runs strong in all four of Karen Vigger’s works. She trained as a domestic and wildlife veterinarian and loves the great outdoors. This strong attachment to nature appeals to her readers across the world. –rFI Set in the old-growth eucalypt forests and vast rugged mountains of […]

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To Follow Elephants, Rick Hodges

Click here to return to the series In today’s world series, we travel back to the continent of Africa, this time with author Rick Hodges; we talk about his visits to Kenya and his new novel To Follow Elephants (Stormbird Press, March 2019). Stick around, because this summer we will […]

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The Novels of Deon Meyer, South Africa

Click here to return to the series Today the global eco-fiction series travels to South Africa to explore the beautiful country and environmental themes found within Deon Meyer’s crime novels (Meyer writes in his native Afrikaans, and his books have been translated around the world), noting, for example, the Lemmer […]

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Red Wolf, Paint, and Hawk – Jennifer Dance

Click here to return to the series Today we travel to North America to look at historical and modern Canada, and the environmental, social, and economic cruelty and injustice befallen to its people and land. I talk with Jennifer Dance, author of Red Wolf, Paint, Hawk, and the play Dandelions […]

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Wilder Girls, Rory Power

From Hypable: Wilder Girls by Rory Power follows Hetty as she looks for her friend, braving a world outside of quarantine and discovering the truth about their story. The Wilder Girls cover, created by Regina Flath and Aykut Aydogdu, is as twisted as it is beautiful, depicting a girl literally […]

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The Book of Dog, Lark Benobi

Brit+Co named The Book of Dog one of 2018’s best feminist books. t’s the night of the Yellow Puff-Ball Mushroom Cloud and a mysterious yellow fog is making its way across the world, sowing chaos in its path. Mt. Fuji has erupted. The Euphrates has run dry. In America the […]

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Hawk, Jennifer Dance

See our global eco-fiction spotlight on Jennifer Dance’s White Feather collection at Dragonfly.eco. Hawk, a First Nations teen from northern Alberta, is a cross-country runner who aims to win gold in an upcoming competition between all the schools in Fort McMurray. But when Hawk discovers he has leukemia, his identity […]

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On a River’s Bank, A Madhavan

Unfortunately I cannot find this book at Goodreads yet, but the Hindu Business Line has an interesting article with the title: Unquiet Flows a River: The English translation of a famed 1974 Tamil novel lets a broader audience take in the ethos of a subaltern people in a fecund Dravidian […]

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Swarga, Ambikasutan Mangad

Translated from the Malayalam, this novel transforms an environmental movement against Endosulfan, a pesticide used in north Kerala, into a fable of great power. Man and Woman, in retreat from the world, live in an almost magical forest, looking after a sick child till they find a whole population poisoned […]

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