Thylacines and the Anthropocene
In Music for Tigers, the recovery of the thylacine is entangled with the protection of lutruwita / Tasmania's wild spaces. Anthropocene themes are made explicit early on: "Logging and mining are a real and continued threat in the region ... Old growth rainforests help combat climate change. In our current climate crisis, protecting them is imperative". The novel positions First Nations voices as expert and that, despite frontier violence and colonial dispersal, they remain "true custodians of all the land".
Louisa is from a family of scientists, but is much more interested in becoming a musician. When the family's rainforest reserve is threatened by industry, Louisa's mother insists that she travel from Toronto to spend her summer there. She befriends Colin, a teenager on the autism spectrum, with a talent for cooking and a deep knowledge of the area, and learns about her family's long history of conservation, including protecting some of the last thylacines. Only one thylacine remains on the property, which the family hopes to relocate into the care of local Elders. Here, the novel skirts tension between the settler family's claims to place and First Nations' unceded sovereignty. Luckily, the thylacine is attracted to Louisa's rendition of Waltzing Matilda.
Music and a neurodivergent teenage character—Samson, a boy with Down syndrome—also feature in Sarah Kanake's thylacine novel Sing Fox to Me. Kanake is part of the country music duo The Shiralee, and weaves folk lyrics throughout the narrative.
