The Australian writer has won the prestigious science fiction prize for her debut novel The Animals in That Country
Twenty years before Margaret Atwood won the inaugural Arthur C Clarke award for her seminal novel The Handmaid’s Tale, she published a poem entitled The animals in that country. Now Laura Jean McKay, who borrowed the title of Atwood’s poem for her debut novel, has gone on to win the prestigious prize, with judges praising her story of a pandemic that enables humans to understand the language of animals for “reposition[ing] the boundaries of science fiction once again”.
The Arthur C Clarke award was originally established through a grant from Clarke, and goes to the best science fiction novel of the year. Previous winners include some of the biggest names in the genre, from China Miéville to Christopher Priest, but this year, six debut writers were shortlisted. Australian novelist McKay won for The Animals in That Country, a depiction of a world where a “zooflu” epidemic allows “enhanced communication between humans and nonhuman animals”, sending many people mad. When wildlife park guide Jean’s son loses his mind and sets out with his daughter Kimberly to find out what whale song really means, she follows him, along with Sue the dingo.
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