Little World
Little World by Josephine Rowe, published by Transit Books on August 12, 2025, is a literary work that explores complex human relationships through a unique narrative lens. The story begins with the body of a child saint found in the Australian desert, setting the stage for a journey that spans from the 1950s to the present day. As the narrative unfolds, readers encounter various characters whose lives are intertwined with the saint, revealing themes of interdependency and the impact of violence.
In this edition, Rowe presents a tapestry of experiences, from a retired engineer who becomes an unwitting custodian of the saint’s legacy to a woman grappling with her past while driving across the Nullarbor Plain. Each section of the book unveils different facets of the saint’s influence, culminating in a contemporary reflection on the connections that bind individuals across time and space. With its focus on LGBTQ+ themes and contemporary issues, Little World offers a profound exploration of human emotion and experience within its 120 pages.
Official synopsis Publisher
“Little World holds tenderness, rage, faith and grace, and it does so in language–so precise, so exacting–it seems, at once, to cut through and join together the complexities of our relations. Each new work from Josephine Rowe is a revelation.”–Madeleine Thien, author of Do Not Say We Have Nothing
Little World opens with the body of a child saint stranded in the Australian desert. Her name is unknown, as is the story of her life and the status of her canonization. She arrives in a box made of canoe timber, and Orrin Bird is dressed in his best clothes to receive her.
As the novel sweeps across time and place, from the 1950s to the present day, we encounter the long shadow of the saint in many forms, revealed section by section: from the retired engineer who unwittingly becomes her custodian, to a woman driving across the Nullarbor Plain in the mid-1970s with a pair of young lovers and haunted by the forced adoption of her only child many years before, and ending in contemporary Victoria.
As we follow the lives the child saint touches across time, what is revealed is a haunting reflection on violence and the interdependency of all things. Little World is a dazzling feat by one of Australia’s finest writers.
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