ISBN: 9781923023550
Blackgum Item Code: NSWB0854
Title: Department of the Vanishing
Author:
Imprint:
RRP: $34.99
More information:
Before the Anthropocene, the air pulsed with birdsong. Now, a silence is falling.

Ava spends her days at The Department, rebuilding lost species from the remaining fragments of art and scientific data. Her dying mother thinks she should quit. So does her lover, and the sex workers who loiter outside her apartment. But when a ghost from her past shows up, Ava is compelled to follow its broken song deep into the archives uncovering a secret that could reverse the age of silence.

Set in a time of mass extinction, Department of the Vanishing blends documentary poetry, archival image, and narrative verse to explore the vital questions: Can we live in a world without birdsong and is it possible to create a new opus with the fragments left over.

Until recently, Johanna Bell lived in Garramilla (Darwin) where she founded a storytelling studio to elevate voices from regional Australia. She now lives in Nipaluna (Hobart) where she writes fiction, poetry and children's books. Her work is widely published and she has won a string of awards, including a Tasmanian Literary Award for the manuscript of Department of the Vanishing.