MERLINDA BOBIS
Merlinda Bobis has had four novels, six poetry books, and a collection of short stories published, and ten dramatic works performed. Her novel Locust Girl, A Lovesong received the Christina Stead Prize for Fiction in the NSW Premier's Literary Awards and the Philippine National Book Award. Her poetry collection Accidents of Composition was Highly Commended for the ACT Book of the Year Award. For her, writing is homecoming; a return to roots, a retrieval through memory, and a reckoning with loss hopefully with care and grace. She lives and writes on Ngunnawal land (Canberra).
Most everything has dried up: water, the womb, even the love among lovers. Hunger is rife and survival desperate, except across the border. One night, a village is bombed for attempting to cross the border. Nine-year old Amedea is buried underground and sleeps to survive. Ten years later, she wakes with a locust embedded in her brow. A magical fable, this is a girl’s journey through devastation and humanity’s contemporary wound: the border. Deeply ingrained in both the system and individual lives, the border has cut the human heart. So, how do we repair it with the story of a small life? This is the Locust Girl’s dream, her lovesong—For those walking to the border for dear life, and those guarding the border for dear life.