The Hum of Concrete

(Paperback)

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Set in the multicultural city of Malmo, Sweden, The Hum of Concrete is the story of five people whose lives intersect. Consumed with despair, Palestinian Nassrin walks into the ocean with her baby in her arms. Susanna dares to take a stand against gay-bashers. By starlight, Bodil sees the city from the roof of a church. Estella meets her tough little half-brother for the first time. Lonely Rhyme seeks shelter in a tree full of fairy lights. And all round them, the hum of concrete. With photographic precision, Anna Solding captures both the light and shadow found in the fleeting beauty of everyday life. From the silences between people and the ordinariness of places, she conjures narrative jewels of intelligence and pleasure.

Reviews

'Few novels invite you in as irresistibly as this one, and few give you as exhilarating and surprising a ride. Anna Solding writes with such tenderness, intelligence and invention. A novel to love and explore with and return to, and a most compelling and intriguing new voice in Australian writing.' - Peter Bishop, Varuna - The Writers' House. 'The characters are treated with heartwarming tenderness... the Swedish settings vividly realized.' - J.M. Coetzee, Nobel Laureate in Literature. 'Anna Solding's spare and sensual prose... weaves a magical intimacy into the cycle of birth, sex and death in the city, and it does not look away from seeing hope.' - Brian Castro, author of The Bath Fugues and Drift.