PublishedGiramondo Publishing, June 2017 |
ISBN9781925336306 |
FormatSoftcover, 232 pages |
Dimensions21cm × 14.8cm |
Newnovel by Felicity Castagna, whose previous book, The Incredible Here and Now, won the 2015 Prime Ministers Award forYoung Adult Fiction and was shortlisted for the CBCA and NSW Premier's LiteraryAwards.
No More Boatstackles the fear of refugees head on, portraying the anxieties of a man who wasonce a migrant himself, brought to breaking point by the Tampa crisis, when thenation itself is thrown into a xenophobic frame of mind.
Itis 2001. 438 refugees sit in a boat called Tampa off the shoreline of Australiawhile the TV and radio scream out that the country is being flooded, inundated,overrun by migrants. Antonio Martone, once a migrant himself, has been forcedto retire, his wife has moved in with the woman next door, his daughter runsoff with strange men, his deadbeat son is hiding in the garden smokingmarijuana. Amidst his growing paranoia, the ghost of his dead friend shows upand commands him to paint 'No More Boats' in giant letters across his frontyard. The Prime Minister of Australia keeps telling Antonio that we willdecide who comes to this country and the circumstance in which they come, but Antonio's not sure he wants tothink about all those things that led him to get on a boat and come toAustralia in the first place. A man and a nation unravel together.
Felicity Castagna is the author of the award-winningnovel The Incredible Here and Now, and its stage adaptation which willpremiere at The National Theatre of Parramatta in 2017. Her collection of shortstories Small Indiscretions was namedan ABR book of the year. Her work has appeared on ABC Radio and TV as well asin national journals and newspapers. She holds a PhD from Western SydneyUniversity and has served as the National Ambassador for Literacy and as adirector at WestWords. She runs the storytelling series Studio Stories.
Read more about Felicity Castagna and her stunning work of fiction, No More Boats, here.
'It is exciting to read a work of fiction that makesan explicit connection between its characters' personal narratives and thespecific events of political history; something of a tradition in Americanfiction, but rarer in an Australian context.' - Delia Falconer
'Afantastic, timely novel that makes a significant contribution to contemporaryAustralian literature - well-written, insightful, entertaining, provocative,funny, intelligent and moving.' - Nathanael O'Reilly
'I was blown away by Felicity Castagna's depictions ofWestern Sydney in The Incredible Here andNow...There is something really quite magical and visceral about connectingwith character and place in a book.' - Randa Abdel-Fattah
