'When a troubled Sarah Hutchinson returns to Australia from boarding school in England and time spent in Europe, she is sent to live with her eccentric Uncle Ferny on the family property, Ngangahook. With the sound of the ocean surrounding everything they do on the farm, Sarah and her uncle form an inspired bond hosting visiting field naturalists and holding soirees in which Sarah performs on a piano whose sound she has altered with items and objects from the bush and shore.
'As Sarah’s world is nourished by music and poetry, Ferny’s life is marked by Such is Life, a book he has read and reread, so much so that the volume is falling apart. Its saviour is Jones the Bookbinder of Moolap, who performs a miraculous act. To shock and surprise, Jones interleaves Ferny’s volume with a book he bought from an American sailor, a once obscure tale of whales and the sea. In art as in life nature seems supreme. Ngangahook and its environs are threatened, however, when members of the community ask the Hutchinsons to help ‘make a savage landscape sacred’ by financing the installation of a town bell. The fearless musician and her idealistic uncle refuse to buckle to local pressures, mounting their own defence of ‘the bell of the world’.
'Gregory Day’s new novel embodies a cultural reckoning in a breathtakingly beautiful and lyrical way. The Bell of the World is both a song to the natural wonders that are not yet gone and a luminous prehistory of contemporary climate change and its connection to colonialism. It is a book immersed in the early to mid-twentieth century but written very much for the hearts of the future.' (Publication summary)
'Shortlists are odd things. Put two lots of judges in separate rooms with the same works and you will not come up with the same one. But it is always interesting when their choices overlap.'
'Much-lauded Praiseworthy joins works by Gregory Day, André Dao, Sanya Rushdi, Jen Craig and Hossein Asgari competing for Australia’s highest literary honour'
'An historical fiction that also reads like a prose poem and a biography.'
Gregory Day in Conversation
Elly Varrenti
(interviewer),
2023
26203353
2023
single work
podcast
interview
'In this episode, a recording taken from the launch of Gregory Day’s novel, The Bell of The World.
'The Bell of the World is both a song to the natural wonders that are not yet gone and a luminous prehistory of contemporary climate change and its connection to colonialism.
'Bell is in conversation with writer and broadcaster Elly Varrenti.' (Introduction)
'Gregory Day’s The Bell of the World is an ambitious, strange and marvellous novel.'
'Among the literary honours awarded to Gregory Day is the 2021 prize from The Nature Conservancy Australia. A profound commitment to the future of the planet as well as a passion for all forms of music and language and a keen awareness of the truths of Indigenous culture form the fabric of his soaring, astonishing new novel.' (Introduction)
'Gregory Day’s The Bell of the World is an ambitious, strange and marvellous novel.'
'An historical fiction that also reads like a prose poem and a biography.'
Gregory Day in Conversation
Elly Varrenti
(interviewer),
2023
26203353
2023
single work
podcast
interview
'In this episode, a recording taken from the launch of Gregory Day’s novel, The Bell of The World.
'The Bell of the World is both a song to the natural wonders that are not yet gone and a luminous prehistory of contemporary climate change and its connection to colonialism.
'Bell is in conversation with writer and broadcaster Elly Varrenti.' (Introduction)
'Much-lauded Praiseworthy joins works by Gregory Day, André Dao, Sanya Rushdi, Jen Craig and Hossein Asgari competing for Australia’s highest literary honour'
'Shortlists are odd things. Put two lots of judges in separate rooms with the same works and you will not come up with the same one. But it is always interesting when their choices overlap.'
