image of person or book cover 7513680788399130035.jpg
Image courtesy of publisher's website.
y separately published work icon The World Without Us single work   novel  
Issue Details: First known date: 2015... 2015 The World Without Us
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

'It has been six months since Tess Müller stopped speaking. Her silence is baffling to her parents, her teachers and her younger sister Meg, but the more urgent mystery for both girls is where their mother, Evangeline, goes each day, pushing an empty pram and returning home wet, muddy and dishevelled.

'Their father, Stefan, struggling with his own losses, tends to his apiary and tries to understand why his bees are disappearing. But after he discovers a car wreck and human remains on their farm, old secrets emerge to threaten the fragile family.

'One day Tess's teacher Jim encounters Evangeline by the wild Repentance River. Jim is in flight from his own troubles in Sydney, and Evangeline, raised in a mountain commune and bearing the scars of the fire that destroyed it, is a puzzle he longs to solve.

'As the rainforest trees are felled and the lakes fill with run-off from the expanding mines, Tess watches the landscape of her family undergo shifts of its own. A storm is coming and the Müllers are in its path.

'Sometimes we must confront what has been lost so that we can know the solace of being found.

'The World Without Us is a beautifully told story of secrets and survival, family and community, loss and renewal.' (Publication summary)

Exhibitions

15866155
15826549

Notes

  • Dedication: For Roger and Guy
  • A short review for this novel appeared in World Literature Today Vol. 93 Issue 3, p47

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

    • London,
      c
      England,
      c
      c
      United Kingdom (UK),
      c
      Western Europe, Europe,
      :
      Bloomsbury ,
      2015 .
      image of person or book cover 7513680788399130035.jpg
      Image courtesy of publisher's website.
      Extent: 293p.
      Note/s:
      • Published: 01-08-2015
      ISBN: 9781408866504
    • London,
      c
      England,
      c
      c
      United Kingdom (UK),
      c
      Western Europe, Europe,
      :
      Bloomsbury ,
      2017 .
      image of person or book cover 4057142523025850837.jpg
      This image has been sourced from Booktopia
      Extent: 320p.
      Note/s:
      • Published: 1st February 2017
      ISBN: 9781408866528

Other Formats

  • Sound recording.
  • Braille.

Works about this Work

Of Bees and Women : Femininity and Climate Change in Mireille Juchau's The World Without Us Judith Rahn , 2023 single work criticism
— Appears in: Gender Forum , no. 81 2023; (p. 64-79)

'This article investigates notions of femininity in light of contemporary debates around anthropogenic climate change in literature. Climate change fiction (cli-fi) specifically considers life in the Anthropocene and the consequence of changing climatological realities for human and nonhuman actors in ecosystems. Seemingly straight-forward dichotomies between human and nonhuman, wild and domesticated, useful and harmful subjectivities are being contested, and literary texts increasingly pick up on and reflect the instabilities of previously undisputed dualisms. Mireille Juchau's novel The World Without Us (2015) explores the intertwined relationships between climate, the animal world, and human subjectivity as it slowly uncovers the multifaceted narration around the Müller family's grief at the loss of their child. As the family's life is repeatedly underscored with symbolism of bees, the narration draws parallels between human life and the lives of bees. The text's elaborate play with multiperspectivity is reminiscent of insect eyes' compound nature and undulates between fragmentation and complexity. This article explores how Juchau's novel offers new ways of exploring femininity within notions of grief and suffering on the one hand and the effects of anthropogenic climate change on the other.'

Source: ProQuest.

Settler Belonging in Crisis : Non-Indigenous Australian Literary Climate Fiction and the Challenge of “The New” Jack Kirne , Emily Potter , 2023 single work criticism
— Appears in: ISLE : Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment , Winter vol. 30 no. 4 2023; (p. 952–971)
Seeking Greener Pages : An Analysis of Reader Response to Australian Eco- Crime Fiction Rachel Fetherston , Emily Potter , Kelly Miller , 2023 single work criticism
— Appears in: Australian Humanities Review , May no. 71 2023;
'IN THEIR WORK ON HOW NARRATIVE MAY HELP AUDIENCES THINK DIFFERENTLY ABOUT other species, Wojciech Malecki et al. refer to the ‘narrative turn’ within academia and its proliferation of research that addresses how ‘moral intuitions often yield to narrative persuasion’ (2). In other words, many scholars are currently asking whether narratives can persuade readers to reflect on and perhaps reconsider their own moral beliefs. The research presented in this paper follows a similar trajectory in its discussion of the results and possible implications of a reader response study that investigated how Australian readers respond to works of Australian eco-crime fiction that portray non-humans and global ecological issues such as climate change in a local Australian context. Resonant with ‘narrative persuasion’—the idea amongst social scientists that ‘a narrative is a catalyst for perspective change’ (Hamby et al. 114)—we consider the capacity of such texts to possibly engage readers with the plight of non-humans in Australia under the impacts of climate change.' (Introduction)
Australian Fiction Is Already Challenging the Idea That Catastrophic Bushfire Is Normal Rachel Fetherston , 2020 single work column
— Appears in: The Guardian Australia , 14 January 2020;

'The stories we tell about bushfire are changing. Our writers have been grappling with its link to climate crisis for years'

The Stella Interview : Mireille Juchau 2018 single work interview
— Appears in: The Stella Interviews 2018;

'Mireille Juchau is the author of 2016 Stella Prize shortlisted book, The World Without Us. We chatted to Mireille about her mentors, favourite authors and the spaces in which she works.'(Introduction)

There's a Sting in the Tale as Communal Calamity Looms A. P. Riemer , 2015 single work review
— Appears in: The Age , 1 August 2015; (p. 29) The Sydney Morning Herald , 1 August 2015; (p. 29)

— Review of The World Without Us Mireille Juchau , 2015 single work novel
What to Do When the Buzz Wears off Geordie Williamson , 2015 single work review
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 1-2 August 2015; (p. 21)

— Review of The World Without Us Mireille Juchau , 2015 single work novel
Mireille Juchau : The World Without Us Annette Marfording , 2015 single work review
— Appears in: The Newtown Review of Books , September 2015;

— Review of The World Without Us Mireille Juchau , 2015 single work novel
An Environment of Fissures and Fractures Karen Hardy , 2015 single work review
— Appears in: The Sun-Herald , 13 September 2015; (p. 12)

— Review of The World Without Us Mireille Juchau , 2015 single work novel
Consolation Susan Lever , 2015 single work review
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , September no. 374 2015; (p. 12)

— Review of The World Without Us Mireille Juchau , 2015 single work novel
Annette Marfording’s Best Reads of 2015 Annette Marfording , 2015 single work column
— Appears in: Rochford Street Review , October - December no. 16 2015;
Miles Franklin Award Longlist 2016 : Five Out of Nine Nominees Are Women Steph Harmon , 2016 single work column
— Appears in: The Guardian Australia , 5 April 2016;
Includes The 2016 Miles Franklin longlist
Utopia and Utopian Studies in Australia Andrew Milner , Verity Burgmann , 2016 single work criticism
— Appears in: Utopian Studies , vol. 27 no. 2 2016; (p. 200-209)
'There are no independently Australian translations of Thomas More’s Utopia. Nor is there any equivalent in Australia to the Society for Utopian Studies in North America or the Utopian Studies Society in Europe. Nor are there any extant formal research groups or undergraduate or graduate courses in utopian studies. There are, however, distinctively Australian traditions of utopian writing, both eutopian and dystopian, and also a limited field of Australian utopian studies, essentially the work of individual scholars. This article attempts a brief description of both.' (Publication summary)
y separately published work icon The World Without Us by Mireille Juchau Jan Hutchinson , Melbourne : CAE Book Group , 2016 12215143 2016 single work criticism
The Stella Interview : Mireille Juchau 2018 single work interview
— Appears in: The Stella Interviews 2018;

'Mireille Juchau is the author of 2016 Stella Prize shortlisted book, The World Without Us. We chatted to Mireille about her mentors, favourite authors and the spaces in which she works.'(Introduction)

Last amended 2 Sep 2020 12:13:51
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