Mass hysteria overwhelms an Australian shopping mall. A Burmese monk recalls a strange path to enlightenment. An ancient professor serves as his tribe’s frontal cortex. A firebrand lawmaker discovers what’s left after her soul is stolen. And everywhere, in this wild panorama of the next five centuries, we find the spectral traces of ourselves. These are worlds, sometimes disturbing, where you may not recognise your descendants…
What do we owe our ancestors? What should we leave our descendants? And what will survive the transition? Lee Hana turned to short form to find out just how lean a novel’s worth of ideas could go. The result is a wild panorama of the Asia-Pacific region after our long carbon spree, and the spiritual evolution of people that come next.
Austere prose reveals provocative new ways of living as the book unfolds. With each story an existential thriller shot with moments of sublime beauty or terror, Descendants marks the luminous intersection of Ursula Le Guin’s cultural empathy and Jorge Luis Borges’ infinite mirrors, resulting in a collection both timeless and urgently now.
Format: Paperback
Pages: 228
Imprint: Small New Zealand Publisher
Publication date: 20/05/2026
