The Swan Book

Australia has been wrecked by climate change, by war, hunger and dust, and the Intervention still governs Aboriginal lives in the north. A teenage girl who no longer speaks, Oblivia Ethylene, was found under a gum tree after being raped by a gang of youths, and taken in by Aunty Bella Donna of the Champions, an eccentric old woman. The two live inside the rusted hull of a stranded warship in a swamp crowded with abandoned boats and black swans, a place used to detain Aboriginal people, and Bella Donna fills Oblivia's head with tales of swans and spirits. Then Warren Finch, the nation's first Aboriginal president and a public darling, claims the young girl as his bride and, as First Lady, confines her to a high tower in a lawless, flood-ruined city in the south.

AI-generated summary

About the book

Form

Novel

Genres

Speculative, Politics, Nature (assigned by AI)

Set in

Australia, the future

First published

2013

Author's age

63 when first published

ISBN

9781922146410 (Giramondo, Australia)

9781472120571 (Constable, United Kingdom)

9781501124785 (Atria, United States)

9781501124792 (Washington Square Press, United States)

9781922725431 (Giramondo, Australia)

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Wikidata