Islands

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A01=Emily Brugman
Albrolhos Islands
Australian fiction
Australian literary fiction
Author_Emily Brugman
based on a true story
Category=FBA
crayfish
debut Australian fiction
debut fiction
Emily Brugman
eq_bestseller
eq_fiction
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_modern-contemporary
eq_nobargain
family saga
family ties
fiction
Finland
Finnish mythology
fisherman
fishing
immigrant experience
mid-century Australia
migrant experience
remote community
shortlisted book
The Australian/Vogel's Literary Award
The AustralianVogel's Literary Award
Vogel Award
Western Australia

Product details

  • ISBN 9781760878580
  • Weight: 420g
  • Dimensions: 155 x 235mm
  • Publication Date: 01 Feb 2022
  • Publisher: Allen & Unwin
  • Publication City/Country: AU
  • Product Form: Paperback
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In the mid-1950s, a small group of Finnish migrants set up camp on Little Rat, a tiny island in an archipelago off the coast of Western Australia. The crayfishing industry is in its infancy, and the islands, haunted though they are by past shipwrecks, possess an indefinable allure.

Drawn here by tragedy, Onni Saari is soon hooked by the stark beauty of the landscape and the slivers of jutting coral onto which the crayfishers build their precarious huts. Could these reefs, teeming with the elusive and lucrative cray, hold the key to a good life?

The Islands is the sweeping story of the Saari family: Onni, an industrious and ambitious young man, grappling with the loss of a loved one; his wife Alva, quiet but stoic, seeking a sense of belonging between the ramshackle camps of the islands and the dusty suburban lots of the mainland; and their pensive daughter Hilda, who dreams of becoming the skipper of her own boat. As the Saari's try to build their future in Australia, their lives entwine with those of the fishing families of Little Rat, in myriad and unexpected ways.

A stunning, insightful story of a search for home.

Emily Brugman grew up in Broulee, on the far south coast of NSW, on the lands of the Yuin people. Her writing has previously appeared in literary journals, magazines and anthologies, including Tracks, the UTS Writers' Anthology and Lines to the Horizon: Australian surf writing. She currently lives in Mullumbimby, on Bundjalung country, and works at Byron Writers Festival. The Islands, her first novel, is inspired by her family's experiences living and working on the Abrolhos Islands between 1959-1972.

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