Flames
ABOUT
THE BOOK
2020 Longlist
A young man named Levi McAllister decides to build a coffin for his twenty-three-year-old sister, Charlotte who promptly runs for her life. A water rat swims upriver in quest of the cloud god. A fisherman named Karl hunts for tuna in partnership with a seal. And a father takes form from fire.
The answers to these riddles are to be found in this tale of grief and love and the bonds of family, tracing a journey across the southern island that takes us full circle.
Flames sings out with joy and sadness. Utterly original in conception, spellbinding in its descriptions of nature and its celebration of the power of language, it announces the arrival of a thrilling new voice in contemporary fiction.
About the Author
Robbie Arnott was born in Launceston, Tasmania in 1989. He won the 2015 Tasmanian Young Writers’ Fellowship and the 2014 Scribe Nonfiction Prize for Young Writers. Arnott was also chosen as Sydney Morning Herald Best Young Australian Novelist. He lives in Hobart and is an advertising copywriter.