Swamplandia!

Ms Russell has produces a rich and humid world of spirits and dreams, buzzing mosquitoes and prehistoric reptiles, baby-green cocoplums and marsh rabbits, and musty old tomes about heroes and spells. With Ava she has created a goofy and self-conscious girl who is young enough to hope that all darkness has an answering lightness. Inevitably she must learn otherwise. Swamplandia! is ultimately about the aching beauties of youth - the way life begins with such dumb sweetness, while the lessons that give it meaning lurk around each bend like terrifying gators in a mossy fragrant swamp * The Economist *The tale of the two flyaway sisters proves lyrically powerful as it maps the enchanted but dangerous worlds that young minds can conjure to deal with grief – Stephen Amidon * Sunday Times *It’s a wonderfully extravagant, eccentric story by a brilliant young writer with an amazing imagination – Kate Saunders * The Times *I was looking forward to Swamplandia! and I wasn’t disappointed. I found this novel beautifully written and very witty, yet often extremely sad too * TheBookBag.com *The Miami-born writer renders the travails and delights of a…dreamlike world that leaves you intoxicated and slightly dishevelled * Monocle *When you start reading a book, it’s either sink or swim. With Karen Russell’s Swamplandia, set in the alligator-infested Florida Everglades, we dove right in and never came up for air… Russell deftly dips into several story lines. And though she trolls some pretty dark waters (abandonment, consumerism, hungry swamp things), there’s magic in discovering how everyone stays afloat * Daily Candy *Russell details peculiarities about the alligators (known as Seths) to fascinating effect and skillfully satirizes the greed and fraudulence of entertainment corporations – Sunita Soliar * Times Literary Supplement *The book certainly abounds in clever and striking images: alligators have “icicle overbites” and Hilola’s children “watch her sink into her own face” as she dies of cancer – Anthony Cummins * Metro *Russell’s primeval imaginings and gutsy language lurk long in the memory – Emma Hagestadt * Independent *The novel packs a genuine punch – Jonathan Gibbs * Daily Telegraph *

Karen Russell, a native of Miami, has been featured in the New Yorker’s debut fiction issue, was chosen as one of Granta’s Best Young American Novelists in 2007, and was most recently named one of New Yorker magazine’s 20 Under 40. Her first collection of short stories, St Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves, was longlisted for the Guardian first book award.

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