UQP acquires brilliant new novel from Mirandi Riwoe

UQP is delighted to announce that next year we will be publishing another novel from prize-winning author Mirandi Riwoe, who has previously won the ARA Historical Novel Prize and the QLA for Fiction, among many accolades. A Short History of Longans will be UQP’s fourth book with Mirandi, after Stone Sky Gold Mountain,The Burnished Sun and Sunbirds. Mirandi’s new novel moves backwards in time, in fifty-year increments, between 2050 and 1850. Each section – Winter, Autumn, Summer and Spring – tells a separate story, yet the overarching narrative is interconnected through family ties and heritage.

A Short History of Longans is about memory – how memory, both collective and individual, is distorted, contextual and sometimes forced upon us. This novel is also about connection and where it can be found – within relationships or ancestry or place. (And, yes, we follow the history of the longan trees too.)

Mirandi Riwoe says:

‘I am so excited to share my novel A Short History of Longans with readers next year. I have really enjoyed writing about Maria, a Mayo orphan during the Great Famine, and how her descendants fared here in Australia. I am delighted to be working with Aviva Tuffield and the UQP team again.’

Aviva Tuffield says:

‘Mirandi Riwoe is one of Australia’s most talented writers of fiction. With each new book she creates a vivid world full of unforgettable characters and multilayered storylines that often revisit and mine themes of identity and belonging, and how places – and their histories – shape people. In addition, Mirandi always sets herself a challenge in terms of form, which is what makes her such an accomplished stylist. With A Short History of Longans, her engrossing intergenerational story is told across four seasons, four time periods and in four distinctive registers, and starts in a recognisable-yet-altered future and weaves back in time to reveal one particular strand of the rich history of this continent.’

About Mirandi Riwoe:

Mirandi Riwoe is the author of Stone Sky Gold Mountain, which won the 2020 Queensland Literary Award – Fiction Book Award and the inaugural ARA Historical Novel Prize, and was shortlisted for the 2021 Stella Prize and longlisted for the 2021 Miles Franklin Literary Award. Her short story collection, The Burnished Sun, includes the novella, The Fish Girl, which won Seizure Viva la Novella and was shortlisted for the Stella Prize. Her third novel, Sunbirds, was set in wartime Java during World War II and was shortlisted for the Barbara Jefferis Award. Her work has appeared in Best Australian Stories, Meanjin, Review of Australian Fiction, Griffith Review and Best Summer Stories. Mirandi has a PhD in Creative Writing and Literary Studies and lives in Brisbane.