UQP acquires new Riwoe novel

The University of Queensland Press (UQP) has acquired world rights to A Short History of Longans, a new novel by Mirandi Riwoe, through Pippa Masson at Curtis Brown.

The 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,’ said the publisher. ‘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).’

Riwoe’s Stone Sky Gold Mountain won the 2020 Queensland Literary Award – Fiction Book Award, the inaugural ARA Historical Novel Prize, was shortlisted for the 2021 Stella Prize and longlisted for the 2021 Miles Franklin Literary Award. Her short story collection, The Burnished Sun, was shortlisted in the 2022 Queensland Literary Awards. Her third novel, Sunbirds, set in wartime Java during World War II, was shortlisted for the Barbara Jefferis Award.

Discussing the novel, Riwoe said, ‘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.’

UQP publisher Aviva Tuffield said, ‘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.’

UQP plans to release A Short History of Longans in 2026

Photo credit: Tammy Law.

Category: Local news Rights and acquisitions