Kawai Strong Washburn was born and raised on the Hamakua coast of the Big Island of Hawai’i. His first novel, Sharks in the Time of Saviors, won the 2021 PEN/Hemingway award for debut novel and the 2021 Minnesota Book Award; it was also longlisted for the 2020 Center For Fiction First Novel Prize and was a finalist for the 2021 PEN/Jean Stein Book Award. Former U.S. President Barack Obama chose it as a favourite novel of 2020, and it was selected as a notable or best book of the year by more than a dozen publications, including The New York Times and Boston Globe. Washburn lives with his wife and two daughters in Minneapolis.
From the award-winning author of Sharks in the Time of Saviors, a sweeping and epic tale of resilience amidst a devastating storm.
Naomi is a fighter—a student of boxing who takes out her own personal frustrations in the classroom, with low success. But when a calamitous weather event strikes America, she is forced to enter a new fight for survival. The storm is coined “the Ultra,” causing massive levels of destruction and uprooting the lives of Naomi and Amaré, a man she meets for the first time as the Ultra forces the two of them out of their building.
As the pair seek refuge and their bond strengthens, they must navigate how to live—and how to love—in a world where environmental ruin mirrors the societal and political upheaval that feels all too familiar.
In the spirit of reconciliation, we acknowledge that we live, work and play on the traditional territories of the Blackfoot Confederacy (Siksika, Kainai, Piikani), the Tsuut’ina, the Iyarhe Nakoda Nations, the Otipemisiwak Métis Government of the Métis Nation within Alberta District 6, and all people who make their homes in the Treaty 7 region of Southern Alberta.
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