Join the Festival’s Artistic Director, Sean Wilson, for a conversation on Hummingbird Salamander, a speculative thriller of dark conspiracy, endangered species, and the end of all things, with international bestseller Jeff VanderMeer.
Software manager Jane Smith receives an envelope containing a key to a storage unit that holds a taxidermied hummingbird and salamander. Alongside the key is a list of five other animals. The list is signed, "Love, Silvina." Jane does not know a Silvina, and she wants nothing to do with the taxidermied animals. The hummingbird and salamander are, it turns out, two of the most endangered species in the world. Silvina Vilcapampa, the woman who left the note, is a reputed eco-terrorist, and the daughter of a recently deceased Argentine industrialist. And by removing the hummingbird and the salamander from the storage unit, Jane has set into motion a series of events over which she has no control.
Instantly, Jane and her family are in danger and she finds herself alone and on the run from both Silvina's family and her eco-terrorist accomplices--along with the wildlife traffickers responsible for the strange taxidermy. She seems fated to follow in Silvina's footsteps as she desperately seeks answers about why Silvina contacted her, and why she is now at the centre of this global conspiracy, and what exactly Silvina was planning. Time is running out -- for her and possibly for the world.
Books are available from our friends at Perfect Books .
The Ottawa International Writers Festival is supported by generous individuals like you. Please consider subscribing to our newsletter and making a donation to support our programming and children’s literacy initiatives .
Presented in partnership with the Ottawa Public Library .
Hummingbird Salamander is a profound and incendiary thriller hurtling backward from the end of the world. Jeff VanderMeer's tale of ecological and personal obsession inhabits that strange, surreal space where the natural world and human ambition collide—a space almost no other writer has chronicled with as much reverence and imaginative lucidity. The result is a detective story unlike any I've read before, futuristic in bearing but deeply relevant to this present, dangerous moment.
Join the Festival’s Artistic Director, Sean Wilson, for a conversation on Hummingbird Salamander, a speculative thriller of dark conspiracy, endangered species, and the end of all things, with international bestseller Jeff VanderMeer.
Software manager Jane Smith receives an envelope containing a key to a storage unit that holds a taxidermied hummingbird and salamander. Alongside the key is a list of five other animals. The list is signed, "Love, Silvina." Jane does not know a Silvina, and she wants nothing to do with the taxidermied animals. The hummingbird and salamander are, it turns out, two of the most endangered species in the world. Silvina Vilcapampa, the woman who left the note, is a reputed eco-terrorist, and the daughter of a recently deceased Argentine industrialist. And by removing the hummingbird and the salamander from the storage unit, Jane has set into motion a series of events over which she has no control.
Instantly, Jane and her family are in danger and she finds herself alone and on the run from both Silvina's family and her eco-terrorist accomplices--along with the wildlife traffickers responsible for the strange taxidermy. She seems fated to follow in Silvina's footsteps as she desperately seeks answers about why Silvina contacted her, and why she is now at the centre of this global conspiracy, and what exactly Silvina was planning. Time is running out -- for her and possibly for the world.
Books are available from our friends at Perfect Books .
The Ottawa International Writers Festival is supported by generous individuals like you. Please consider subscribing to our newsletter and making a donation to support our programming and children’s literacy initiatives .
Presented in partnership with the Ottawa Public Library .
