A Tortoise for the Queen of Tonga: Stories
by Julia Whitty
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Description
Bringing a unique perspective and a singular voice to contemporary fiction, A TORTOISE FOR THE QUEEN OF TONGA features lush, poignant stories about the natural world. Here are mammals, historical figures, everyday people who discover the liberating properties of memory and knowledge in the face of captivity and loneliness. We meet a forlorn tortoise forced to live among humans. We witness orcas at Ocean World staging a revolt, using celibacy as their weapon. In a French cave, a young show more computer animator draws parallels between Cro-Magnon and modern women. One story even travels to heaven, where Charles Darwin seeks the source of human happiness. Whitty joins her authority about wildlife and her rich imagination to spectacular effect. Drawing on twenty years' experience with making nature documentaries, she takes readers inside the minds of animals and people struggling to overcome their limitations. In a voice as magical as it is informed, A TORTOISE FOR THE QUEEN OF TONGA bridges the mythical and the mundane, the animal and the human. Julia Whitty is a brilliant new storyteller in American short fiction. show lessTags
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Member Reviews
Superb short stories, the first being the title of this book. The giant tortoise named Tu'i Malila was captured by Captain Cook stuck in the ship’s hold without food and water for a year, to be fresh meat if the crew needed. When he got to Tonga he gifted her to the queen. The tortoise lives like royalty but never forgets the pain of that year. 😭 Each story is unique and I felt the author did an amazing amount of research. One is hilarious: Darwin in Heaven had me rolling with laughter. I highly recommend it.
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Author Information
3+ Works 161 Members
Julia Whitty's fiction has appeared in Harper's Magazine, Story, Ploughshares, and Zoetrope. Whitty has won an O. Henry Award and been a finalist for a National Magazine Award. She has also written and produced more than seventy documentaries for PBS, National Geographic, the Discovery Channel, and the Arts and Entertainment Network. She lives in show more northern California show less
Awards and Honors
Common Knowledge
- Important places*
- Tonga
*Some information comes from Common Knowledge in other languages. Click "Edit" for more information.
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- Members
- 42
- Popularity
- 699,620
- Reviews
- 1
- Rating
- (3.50)
- Languages
- English
- Media
- Paper, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 3
- UPCs
- 1
- ASINs
- 1
