- Title:
-
Bird Life: A Novel
- Written by:
-
Anna Smaill
- Read by:
-
Eva Seymour
- Format:
-
Unabridged CD Audio Book
- Number of CDs:
-
8
- Duration:
-
9 hours 46 minutes
- Published:
-
April 28 2024
- Available Date:
-
April 28 2024
- Age Category:
-
Adult
- ISBN:
-
9781038671547
- Genres:
-
Fiction; Contemporary Fantasy; Literary Fiction; New Zealand Fiction; Psychological Fiction
- Publisher:
-
Bolinda audio
Qty
Format
Price
Bolinda price
Award winning author
New Zealand author
Longlisted Ockham New Zealand Book Awards / Fiction 2024
A lyrical and ambitious exploration of madness and what it is like to experience the world differently, from the Booker Prize–longlisted author of The Chimes.
In Ueno Park, Tokyo, as workers and tourists gather for lunch, the pollen blows, a fountain erupts, pigeons scatter and two women meet, changing the course of one another’s lives.
Dinah has come to Japan from New Zealand to teach English and grieve the death of her brother, Michael. In the seemingly empty, eerie apartment block where Dinah has been housed, she sees Michael everywhere, even as she feels his absence sharply.
Yasuko is polished, precise and keenly observant of her students and colleagues at the language school, and of the natural world. When she was 13, animals began to speak to her, to tell her things she did not always want to hear. She has suppressed these powers for many years, but sometimes she allows them to resurface, to the dismay of her adult son, Jun. One day, she returns home, and Jun has gone. Even her special gifts cannot bring him back.
As these two women deal with their individual trauma, they form an unlikely friendship in which each will help the other to see a different possible world.
'Bird Life is a deeply affecting novel, transcending cultural barriers while reaching through them to the essentially human.'
The Times
'A beautifully lyrical tale of loss, grief and madness, whose central characters are so deftly drawn that you find yourself breathlessly following them down. Magically strange yet horribly real.'
Mat Osman, author of The Ghost Theatre