Claire Corbett: When We Have Wings (Allen & Unwin)
This unusual and original novel evokes a futuristic world as seen by ‘fliers’, people who find ways to acquire wings and explore the skies. Corbett contrasts a glamorous world of towering cityscapes and floating islands in the sky with an underclass of the flightless: the powerless, the poor and the weak. Crossing several genres – fantasy, thriller, detective story – this novel addresses numerous questions of class, of genetics, of gender, and of what it means to be human. This is a story of great imaginative power in which women’s maternal rights are exploited and ultimately asserted.