Author | Alexis Wright |
---|---|
Cover artist | Darren Gilbert |
Country | Australia |
Language | English |
Genre | Fiction |
Publisher | Giramondo Publishing |
Publication date | 2013 |
Media type | Print (paperback) |
Pages | 339 pp |
ISBN | 978-1-922146-83-0 |
OCLC | 849317121 |
Preceded by | Carpentaria |
The Swan Book is the third novel by the Indigenous Australian author Alexis Wright. It met with critical acclaim when it was published, and was short-listed for Australia's premier literary prize, the Miles Franklin Award.[1][2]
The Swan Book is set in the future, with Aboriginal people still living under the Intervention in the north, in an environment fundamentally altered by climate change. It follows a girl who is pulled from a tree as a child after having been lost and gang-raped, and how she grows up raised by a European immigrant and seemingly guided by swans. After the death of her guardian, she is betrothed to a boy who grows up to become the first Indigenous President of Australia (Prime Minister has been abandoned in this future), and later marries him, despite retaining a childlike mind even as an adult.