A review of Dreamtime, followed by an interview in two parts:
"During my first trip in 2017, an Okinawan man, Hidemasa Taira, was run over and killed by a drunk marine and there were two military aircraft crashes involving first a nursery and then a school. Horrifying catastrophes that could have caused an uprising, were it not such a familiar story. If news of the first reached the international community it would have been as the death of a ‘Japanese’ man, and the truth of the issue and Japan’s complicity in it would not have been recognised. Most likely it was swept under the carpet by the SOFA...."
Read moreSol notes an all-American smile of implausibly white teeth, many and strong, the troops perfectly drawn up for battle. Even the muscles in his face look powerful, his jaw broad and sharply defined, cheekbones underlining light green eyes and a low-fade haircut, dirty blonde with a sprinkling of steel. He’s mature: there’s something knowing about that grin, despite its openness…
Read more#SheCan promotes women’s journeys. Here I talk about mine.
Read more“Multiplicity characterises this novel … The story shape-shifts like the foxes of Japanese folklore, leaving it unclear in whom — or what — the reader can place their trust. Sea dragons thrash against chemical threat. Predators of old stalk new victims. Accents slip (and so do masks). The island of Okinawa itself is a place out of time — at once a theme park as well as a fortress; the cult of Americana imposes itself on the islanders who, try as they might, cannot escape its military boot …”
Read more“Dreamtime works towards a conclusion of enormous impact, a kind of ecological Heart of Darkness. But even in this cataclysm we recognise the familiar sense of denial … Dreamtime – in all its breathless intensity of noise and colour – is the unapologetic opposite of denial.”
Read morePairing Humour with Atrocity - Venetia Welby and A E Copenhaver discuss their novels Dreamtime and My Dark Green Days of Euphoria.
Read moreWatch Venetia Welby and Alison Moore in conversation about their novels Dreamtime and The Retreat at an online launch with Five Leaves Bookshop.
Read moreDreamtime on Cambridge radio show, Bookmark.
Read more"Okinawa is not protected by its coloniser, Japan, but left to the US military to pollute indiscriminately, and, even after reversion to Japan, to commit violence against without reckoning or restraint…”
Read more“Brilliantly written, dark literary fiction revisiting the Animal Groom myth, for the climate change era…”
Read more“Welby inflects the end of the world as we know it with a kind of black comedy…”
Read more“I flew to Naha, the capital of Okinawa, where the culture clash of the island became immediately apparent: ‘military personnel welcome’ signs in bar windows, Spam in the most delicious of indigenous dishes, goya champuru, and highways built over the gorgeous coral beach of the city, jostling for space with an ancient Ryukyuan shrine…”
Read more“Welby has done a fine job of creating an unusually compelling and prescient novel that should be of great interest to all readers, not just those with a particular interest in Okinawa. Perhaps it will also help to awaken the outside world to what is happening in the Ryukyus now and what might happen in the future.”
Read more“Darkly compelling and utterly unique … the writing is exquisite.”
Read more“Never have I experienced a story like this one and I doubt I ever will again … It is the sort of book, that you are dying for everyone you know to read so you can discuss it … avidly, over vast G&Ts until late into the night!”
Read more“This uniquely multi-layered, multi-genre storyline, is wonderfully textured, brutally and frighteningly intense, deep and rich in atmosphere, ever evolving and written by an author who has complete confidence in the visual imagery of her words to lift the narrative and dialogue from the pages and make it come sickeningly to life.”
Read more“I would recommend this for anyone who is interested in literary fiction, who is open to a read that will grab them and not let go. I continued to think about Dreamtime long after I finished it, and the imagery will continue to haunt me.”
Read more“London-based author Venetia Welby conjures up haunting depictions of personal loss, societal trauma and ecological collapse in her staggering second novel.”
Read more“the hallucinogenic edge to Welby’s prose evoking an otherworldly sense of impending reckoning for the human race…”
Read more“In the near future of Dreamtime, Okinawa suffers still – and in the same way: increased conflict with China has led to military expansion throughout the islands. This is already happening there, but I wanted to explore it in conjunction with the threat of rising, barren seas and the extinction of island life. It is a future that in many ways is already here …”
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