Everything Feels Like the End of the World

(Paperback)

Available Formats

Publishing Details

Classifications

Physical Properties

Description

'Thrilling, prescient and deeply moving ... an electrifying new voice in Australian fiction.' Emily Bitto

'clear eyes, sharp intellect and deep sorrow - both lament and protest song.' Kate Mildenhall

'An exquisite elegy for the world we know, and the world we know is to come ... delicate, precise and heartbreaking.' Briohny Doyle

'A funny, tough, restless author for our times ... intimate, surprising and sly.' Ronnie Scott

'Suffused with sensuality, riven with loss.' Rose Michael

'A fireworks show of bursting ideas.' Richell Prize Judges

Everything Feels Like the End of the World is a collection of short speculative fiction exploring possible futures in an Australia not so different from our present day to one thousands of years into an unrecognisable future.

Each story is anchored, at its heart, in what it means to be human: grief, loss, pain and love. A young woman is faced with a difficult choice about her pregnancy in a community ravaged by doubt. An engineer working on a solar shield protecting the Earth shares memories of their lover with an AI companion. Two archivists must decide what is worth saving when the world is flooded by rising sea levels. In a heavily policed state that preferences the human and punishes the different, a mother gives herself up to save her transgenic child.

These transformative stories are both epic and granular, and forever astonishing in their imaginative detail, sense of revelation and emotional connection. They herald the arrival of a stunning new voice.

Author Bio

Else Fitzgerald is a Melbourne-based writer. Her writing has appeared in various publications including Australian Book Review, Meanjin, The Guardian, The Suburban Review and Award Winning Australian Writing. Her work has been recognised in awards including the Grace Marion Wilson Prize, the Elizabeth Jolley Short Story Prize, the Lord Mayor's Creative Writing Awards, the Fair Australia Prize, the VU Overland Short Story Prize and the Margaret River Short Story Award.

In 2017 Else was a WrICE (Writers Immersion and Cultural Exchange Program) Emerging Writer Fellow, participating in residencies in the Philippines and Melbourne. In 2018 she received a VicArts grant from Creative Victoria to work on her collection of short speculative fiction, Nearly Curtains, which explores landscapes, language and technology and the ways they may shift and alter in a radically changing world. Nearly Curtains won the 2019 Richell Prize for Emerging Writers.

Find Else at elsefitzgerald.com