6 /10 1 Votes
Language English Media type Print Paperback ISBN 1-74114-871-5 Country Australia | 3/5 Goodreads Publication date 2006 Pages 347 pp Originally published 2006 Genre Novel OCLC 74946085 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Publisher Allen and Unwin, Australia People also search for Andrew O'Connor's joke machine joke book, The deeper picture, Exclusive, This model life | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Tuvalu is a 2006 novel by Australian author Andrew O'Connor. It won The Australian/Vogel Literary Award for unpublished manuscripts by writers under 35.
Contents
Plot introduction
The novel is set mostly in Tokyo and tells the story of a young Australian teacher of English, and his relationship with two women, Tilly, another Australian English teacher, and Mami, a Japanese hotel heiress. It is told in first-person.
Explanation of the novel's title
Tuvalu is a small Pacific island nation. It doesn't appear in the novel except as an idea. Tilly describes it to Noah as follows:
I guess for me Tuvalu's always done the trick. I've never been anywhere near it. I've never even studied it. For all I know it might well have sunk. But that one word's taken on a meaning all of its own. [...] Haven't you ever once looked into the future and pictured a different life for yourself, made it a destination in some abstract way? A place in which you are content and from which you never look forward, except maybe to hope for more of the same?