Future Girl

TitleFuture Girl
Year for Search2020
AuthorsAsphyxia, [pseud.]
Pagination373 pp.
Date Published2020
PublisherAllen & Unwin Australia
Place PublishedCrows Nest, NSW, Australia
ISBN Number9781760294373
KeywordsAustralian author, Deaf author, Female author
Annotation

The setting for the novel is a future Australia is dominated by a corporation that has developed an artificial food and has made the growing and consumption of “wild” food illegal. The point-of-view character is a sixteen-year-old girl who is deaf and whose hearing mother, concerned that she be able to fully integrate into hearing society, sends her to a regular school, go through speech therapy, and fails to realize that even with hearing aids and lipreading she struggles to understand most of what people say or, because she cannot sign or fingerspell, communicate with other deaf people. Her one love is art, and the novel is heavily illustrated in color on every page. The novel has two intertwined threads as the girl comes into her own as she learns Auslan (Australian sign language) and finger spelling, begins to become integrated into the Deaf community, and becomes an advocate for natural food.

Info Notes

Throughout the novel d/Deaf is used to refer to someone who is deaf but not part of the Deaf community, and the novel ends with a note to the reader on how to interact with the d/Deaf.

Illustration

Illus.

Pseudonym

Asphyxia [pseud.]

Holding Institutions

The Deaf Australian female author was the child of oral parents.

Full Text

2020 Asphyxia [pseud.]. Future Girl. Illus. Crows Nest, NSW, Australia: Allen & Unwin Australia. 373 pp.

The setting for the novel is a future Australia is dominated by a corporation that has developed an artificial food and has made the growing and consumption of “wild” food illegal. The point-of-view character is a sixteen-year-old girl who is deaf and whose hearing mother, concerned that she be able to fully integrate into hearing society, sends her to a regular school, go through speech therapy, and fails to realize that even with hearing aids and lipreading she struggles to understand most of what people say or, because she cannot sign or fingerspell, communicate with other deaf people. Her one love is art, and the novel is heavily illustrated in color on every page. The novel has two intertwined threads as the girl comes into her own as she learns Auslan (Australian sign language) and finger spelling, begins to become integrated into the Deaf community, and becomes an advocate for natural food. The Deaf Australian female author was the child of oral parents, and throughout the novel d/Deaf is used to refer to someone who is deaf but not part of the Deaf community, and the novel ends with a note to the reader on how to interact with the d/Deaf.