In the distant future, humans are on the verge of extinction and have settled in small tribes across the planet under the observation and care of the Mothers. Some children are made in factories, from cells of rabbits and dolphins; some live by getting nutrients from water and light, like plants. The survival of the race depends on the interbreeding of these and other alien beings - but it is far from certain that connection, love, reproduction, and evolution will persist among the inhabitants of this faltering new world.
Unfolding over geological eons, Under the Eye of the Big Bird is at once an astonishing vision of the end of our species as we know it and a meditation on the qualities that, for better and worse, make us human.
Publisher: Granta Books
ISBN: 9781803512365
Number of pages: 288
Dimensions: 198 x 129 mm
No other book of hers convinces me more that Kawakami used to be a teacher of chemistry. A sad but beautiful depiction of a perishing world - Banana Yoshimoto
There's real satisfaction in figuring out how the chapters connect, and all are richly imagined - Telegraph
Haunting... it offers a powerful corrective to the assumption of human primacy - Guardian
I started reading this book on New Years Day and initially thought I was still a bit merry from the night before, but no, as per the blurb above, this is a book set in an entirely transformed world. Modern Japan is... More
I spent most of this book confused about what was going on. I thought I got the hang of it, then the narrative moved to another viewpoint. These people are human, but are they really? Where are we? When are we?... More
"The humans kept doing the same things; loving one another, hating one another fighting one another… You'd think they'd come up with something else to try…"
In the far distant future, almost too...
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