Arabic version: رواية «ماين» لآدم أوستون تستكشف تسمانيا في جملة واحدة

According to The Guardian, Adam Ouston’s second novel, Mine, is written as one long sentence composed of thousands of clauses, digressions, conjunctions, modifications and clarifications. The book follows a poet, activist and teacher who falls to the bottom of an abandoned mine shaft in western Tasmania while researching ghost towns for what he calls his “last great work”.

The novel begins and ends with a howl described as “at once consoling and terrifying”. In the darkness, the central character worries about air, claustrophobia and carbon monoxide poisoning, while the narrative ranges through Tasmania’s winds, rain and mining history. The poet’s proposed work is presented as a reckoning with place and lost futures, with the title Mine carrying associations of colonial ownership over land and resources.

The Guardian’s review describes the book as a hallucinatory work of environmental and social history rather than a linear account. Its narrative includes an elegy for one of the poet’s friends, Mawson’s Antarctic expedition, the poet’s own icebreaker journey and a visit to the ghost town of Chester. It culminates in an account of the 1912 North Mount Lyell mine disaster, in which 42 men died.

Ouston’s earlier novel, Waypoints, published in 2022, was longlisted for the 2023 Miles Franklin award. The review says Mine is a more accomplished work, linking its radical form with the political energy of its activist-poet and its criticism of labour and environmental exploitation in Tasmania. Mine is out now through Transit Lounge at $34.99.