What do you think?
Rate this book
Little World
A mesmerising tale from one of Australia’s literary stars
'He has no notion of how to care for a saint. Even a small one. Does not even believe … Still. Catholic or not. You don't turn away a saint.'
In the north-western corner of 1950s Australia, a saint arrives at the home of a retired engineer, who unwittingly becomes her custodian. A girl of indeterminate age, her body remains as it was when she died, incorruptible. And though no one knows it, she is conscious, reflecting on past and present.
Little World stretches across continents and eras – from the Canal Zone in Panama and the island of Nauru all the way to the onset of Covid in contemporary Victoria. Beautiful, rich and strange, it weaves a tale of interconnected fates as characters grapple with the unknowable, and in this way come face to face with their deepest needs.
'He has no notion of how to care for a saint. Even a small one. Does not even believe … Still. Catholic or not. You don't turn away a saint.'
In the north-western corner of 1950s Australia, a saint arrives at the home of a retired engineer, who unwittingly becomes her custodian. A girl of indeterminate age, her body remains as it was when she died, incorruptible. And though no one knows it, she is conscious, reflecting on past and present.
Little World stretches across continents and eras – from the Canal Zone in Panama and the island of Nauru all the way to the onset of Covid in contemporary Victoria. Beautiful, rich and strange, it weaves a tale of interconnected fates as characters grapple with the unknowable, and in this way come face to face with their deepest needs.
120 pages, Kindle Edition
Published April 29, 2025
8 people are currently reading
583 people want to read
About the author
Josephine Rowe
27 books73 followersJosephine Rowe is the author of three story collections and a novel, A Loving, Faithful Animal (UQP, 2016). She holds fellowships from the Wallace Stegner program at Stanford University and the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa. She currently lives in Melbourne.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 25 of 25 reviews
February 10, 2025
thank you to edelweiss for the drc! that was so good 😭 FUCK. you have to have a pretty high tolerance for litfic and dense, prosaic writing, but if you can handle that, this is SUCH a good story and I can see myself rereading it and experiencing it in a different way in the future. i wasn't expecting to be bowled over by something with so few pages, but it really, really got my ass. Mathilde, I love you. mothers and caretakers of the world, I love you. Lesbians, I love you!!!
December 29, 2024
Given that I finished this at the midway point between Christmas and New Year's, and I am one of those who is packaged with seasonal depression, I didn't think I would have the energy to really get into this book - slim in size but dense and deep. But I found so much to love. I love Rowe's writing style, staccato bursts of words, phrases, ideas, thoughts, dialogue, bringing the story together in strings, and hiding the plot from immediate view like a soft fondant protecting her cake. I love her treatment of her characters, each one belonging to a bold stretch of time, indecisive here, damned decisive there. I love trying to sort out the why of what I was reading as it unfolded and folded back on itself over the course of decades in such a thin little book.
I'll read this again and again.
Many thanks to the author, to Edelweiss, and to Transit Books for the digital ARC of this book that I received in exchange for this honest review. And please take the time to look further into Transit Books - a publishing house that is also a nonprofit, committed to the discovery and promotion of enduring works that carry readers across borders and communities.
I'll read this again and again.
Many thanks to the author, to Edelweiss, and to Transit Books for the digital ARC of this book that I received in exchange for this honest review. And please take the time to look further into Transit Books - a publishing house that is also a nonprofit, committed to the discovery and promotion of enduring works that carry readers across borders and communities.
July 9, 2025
3.5. Enjoyed this little book about a saint in WA and truly did not know what to expect, lol
July 2, 2025
A novella crafted into only 136 intriguing pages, Little World is Josephine Rowe's fourth book. She has previously published the 2016 novel A Loving Faithful Animal and two short story collections. As you can see in my review, it was the her first collection Tarcutta Wake (2012) that alerted me to the promise of this writer:
Little World has that strange compelling quality too. This is the kind of book that makes a reader stop to think: why is there this episode that seems to be out of place or irrelevant? Josephine Rowe is too good a writer to be placing random episodes without purpose, so we readers have to do the work of interpreting opaque or ambiguous sequences. For me, the work of multiple re-readings is worth it...
Written in three parts, the book begins with the arresting image of a retired engineer taking delivery of a (maybe) saint. Orrin Bird is somewhere in the remote bush, and the nameless saint arrives by horse float, and just as well, because a more appropriate conveyance, such as a hearse, would have attracted attention, prying in the guise of condolences. Condolences would not have been unwarranted because it is his old friend Kaspar Isaksen who has sent him this bizarre bequest. Kaspar had cared for her in a box of tamanu wood that Orrin had crafted without knowing its purpose, but Kaspar, haunted by horror, has drunk himself to death. It is Orrin to whom he entrusts the responsibility while, so the solicitor tells him, the process for potential beatification continues.
This strange but convincing scenario is the vehicle for historical allusions about events that have been largely obliterated by time and indifference:
[These events take place on the island of Nauru, known to Australians for the phosphate mining that destroyed its landscape into a moonscape, and for its reincarnation as a detention centre for refugees. This novella does not allow it to be out-of-sight and out-of-mind.]
To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2025/07/02/l...
Beautifully crafted, powerful stories that made me stop and reflect, and remember. Many of them are the kind of stories that trigger memories of similar situations. This collection is one that will have the reader spend as much time thinking as actually reading.
Little World has that strange compelling quality too. This is the kind of book that makes a reader stop to think: why is there this episode that seems to be out of place or irrelevant? Josephine Rowe is too good a writer to be placing random episodes without purpose, so we readers have to do the work of interpreting opaque or ambiguous sequences. For me, the work of multiple re-readings is worth it...
Written in three parts, the book begins with the arresting image of a retired engineer taking delivery of a (maybe) saint. Orrin Bird is somewhere in the remote bush, and the nameless saint arrives by horse float, and just as well, because a more appropriate conveyance, such as a hearse, would have attracted attention, prying in the guise of condolences. Condolences would not have been unwarranted because it is his old friend Kaspar Isaksen who has sent him this bizarre bequest. Kaspar had cared for her in a box of tamanu wood that Orrin had crafted without knowing its purpose, but Kaspar, haunted by horror, has drunk himself to death. It is Orrin to whom he entrusts the responsibility while, so the solicitor tells him, the process for potential beatification continues.
Orrin—not devout, or not in a Catholic sense—is conflicted about the nature of this legacy. He has no notion of how to care for a saint. Even a small one. Does not even believe. Not in any one God, attended by angels and casting his divine judgement down from On High. If he has gods, they are many, and they themselves tend—are the kind who get their hands dirty and wet, who are the Dirt and the Wet. And yes, the Dry. Terrible Dry, who doubtless has no comprehension nor will towards terror. Just is. As are the gods Salt and Reef and Ant Mound. The birds who tell him whether he is or isn't home.
Still. Catholic or not. You don't turn away a saint. (p.5)
This strange but convincing scenario is the vehicle for historical allusions about events that have been largely obliterated by time and indifference:
In the years that followed, Kaspar Isaksen took up the task of methodically drinking himself to death. His letters came clogged with remorse for fates he'd not learnt of until after the war. For instance how, during the occupation, his former charges had been rounded up on their cultivated strip of coast and loaded onto small boats, and the boats towed out to sea, shelled and sunk. Thus leprosy was removed from the island. (p.27, see Japanese WW2 atrocities on occupied Nauru.)
[These events take place on the island of Nauru, known to Australians for the phosphate mining that destroyed its landscape into a moonscape, and for its reincarnation as a detention centre for refugees. This novella does not allow it to be out-of-sight and out-of-mind.]
To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2025/07/02/l...
June 16, 2025
loved this weird little book!!
July 18, 2025
I appreciated the beautiful writing and there was something intriguing about the story. The idea of an incorruptible body with a form of consciousness and still having an impact on people and the natural world. It was a short intense read that I enjoyed.
March 14, 2025
A cool little book! Following the body of a deceased saint we meet many people in different time periods and see how they encounter her. In structure it reminds me a very small amount of North Woods and the house being the connection point there. The idea that a physical object (feels weird calling a body an object) can link people is very interesting to me. Some very beautiful writing throughout as well! Thanks to Transit for the advanced copy and looking forward to the pub date August 12, 2025.
June 15, 2025
Author Josephine Rowe’s latest novella LITTLE WORLD (Black Inc 2025) is a literary gem with sparkling and evocative prose, nuanced and unforgettable characters and a suitable amount of ambiguity and complexity to encourage deep thought about profound and universal themes.
Divided into three ‘acts’, with the second act also divided into two, the book explores divinity, humanity, feminism, diversity, loneliness, isolation, self-sufficiency (in both body and spirit), adventure, grief, institutionalisation and preconceived world views, violence, freedom and the quest for self.
The powerful opening concerns a young saint, gifted to a retired engineer living in rural 1950’s Australia. He has no idea how to care for a saint, or indeed any particular beliefs about sainthood but nevertheless he accepts that this is a gift from which he cannot turn away. He doesn’t know it, but the saint has some form of consciousness, and so we are privileged to ‘hear’ or intuit her thoughts about life, her background and history and the forces that have led her to where she is today. The story then moves across continents and eras, with a series of interconnected tales that chart the fates of several other main characters all challenged by their histories, their current situations and their impossible dreams.
LITTLE WORLD is a rich, lush, strange, atmospheric, ethereal story with contemporary and pragmatic sections that cut through the magical with vivid and brutal realities. The idea that something is ‘lucid and sober – and seeming no more implausible than anything else’ captures the heart of this novella. It moves through time and space, and from multiple perspectives, with the gentle and tender warmth of water finding its own level. With the lightest of touches, it approaches issues of great controversy or division or pain or weight, skimming over them with sharp literary prose that piques our appetite but never fully satiates. This is a story of questions rather than answers, of problems not solutions, and of thoughtfulness rather than didactics. A truly beautiful, vibrant, esoteric and strange tale.
Divided into three ‘acts’, with the second act also divided into two, the book explores divinity, humanity, feminism, diversity, loneliness, isolation, self-sufficiency (in both body and spirit), adventure, grief, institutionalisation and preconceived world views, violence, freedom and the quest for self.
The powerful opening concerns a young saint, gifted to a retired engineer living in rural 1950’s Australia. He has no idea how to care for a saint, or indeed any particular beliefs about sainthood but nevertheless he accepts that this is a gift from which he cannot turn away. He doesn’t know it, but the saint has some form of consciousness, and so we are privileged to ‘hear’ or intuit her thoughts about life, her background and history and the forces that have led her to where she is today. The story then moves across continents and eras, with a series of interconnected tales that chart the fates of several other main characters all challenged by their histories, their current situations and their impossible dreams.
LITTLE WORLD is a rich, lush, strange, atmospheric, ethereal story with contemporary and pragmatic sections that cut through the magical with vivid and brutal realities. The idea that something is ‘lucid and sober – and seeming no more implausible than anything else’ captures the heart of this novella. It moves through time and space, and from multiple perspectives, with the gentle and tender warmth of water finding its own level. With the lightest of touches, it approaches issues of great controversy or division or pain or weight, skimming over them with sharp literary prose that piques our appetite but never fully satiates. This is a story of questions rather than answers, of problems not solutions, and of thoughtfulness rather than didactics. A truly beautiful, vibrant, esoteric and strange tale.
Read
December 22, 2024(This review is based on an advanced reader’s copy provided by Edelweiss.)
~3 stars. A strange little book. Definitely well-written at a prose level, it was never a chore to read, but I’m not sure what to make of it or what it all adds up to. It’s not that I need every question to be answered, I’m generally fine with ambiguous endings—it’s more that in this case I don’t even know what questions to ask. I enjoyed reading it, but it didn’t really go anywhere. Like, okay, there’s a saint, and various people encounter her…but so what? It’s not clear to me that the presence of the saint significantly changes anything about the other characters’ lives, so what’s the point of her being there?
That said, I was sufficiently interested that I would try this author’s other books.
Recommended for fans of Bitter Water Opera.
Content notes: Child sexual abuse/assault. Adoption, from the biological mother’s perspective. Description of self-managed abortions via various folk remedies.
~3 stars. A strange little book. Definitely well-written at a prose level, it was never a chore to read, but I’m not sure what to make of it or what it all adds up to. It’s not that I need every question to be answered, I’m generally fine with ambiguous endings—it’s more that in this case I don’t even know what questions to ask. I enjoyed reading it, but it didn’t really go anywhere. Like, okay, there’s a saint, and various people encounter her…but so what? It’s not clear to me that the presence of the saint significantly changes anything about the other characters’ lives, so what’s the point of her being there?
That said, I was sufficiently interested that I would try this author’s other books.
Recommended for fans of Bitter Water Opera.
Content notes: Child sexual abuse/assault. Adoption, from the biological mother’s perspective. Description of self-managed abortions via various folk remedies.
August 5, 2025
A literary fiction tale, Little World (2025) by Josephine Rowe is a novella of three interconnected stories. It begins in the Kimberely in the 1950s Australia, with the delivery of a box containing a body of a saint – a young unnamed girl. Then it’s 1976 and Matti is on a road trip in a Combi van across Australia’s Nullarbor Plain. The final short story is a young couple in current day Victoria, as the child saint touches the lives of each of the protagonists across the various timelines, with a mystical, surreal feel. An unusual novella with a strong character focus that has a reflective atmospheric four star read rating. As always, the opinions herein are totally my own, freely given and without any inducement.
June 19, 2025
Reading this, you’re in a state of unknown kind of piecing together the connection between each part of the novel, how the women interact with their context, both past and present. There were a lot of times that were ambiguous, and you had to methodically place things together. The saint is just primarily, I think, a vessel to help these women navigate their contextual times. But also a connection to both past, present, and future.
3.5
3.5
August 29, 2025
“If she had survived, she might still be alive. Middle-aged, now. Grown bitter, but perhaps loved for it, even so. Bitter has its merits, its sophistications. Bitter is a rite, a taste you can acquire. People go to some trouble to acquire a taste for it.”
A lovely, strange little book about pain and loneliness and being loved in all our traumas and imperfections. All told in beautiful prose. Short enough to read in one sitting but I’ll be thinking about this one for a long time.
A lovely, strange little book about pain and loneliness and being loved in all our traumas and imperfections. All told in beautiful prose. Short enough to read in one sitting but I’ll be thinking about this one for a long time.
Read
June 9, 2025Beautifully written story which was complex and unlike others. I was gripped by the character Matthilde and of course the ‘saint’. No way to know where this story would take you next.
I think it is worth reading but not sure whether to recommend. I found it mostly sad. Perhaps you can imagine Matthilde finding peace on her plot of land.
I think it is worth reading but not sure whether to recommend. I found it mostly sad. Perhaps you can imagine Matthilde finding peace on her plot of land.
June 7, 2025
A perfect plane trip read - small in size and huge in content. I had the luxury of picking it up and putting it down to contemplate without interruption. A good pick for book clubs and a view of Australia that we see without acknowledgement. I’m going to read it again…
June 14, 2025
Some moments of beauty and brevity.
I felt either I didn’t understand the author’s intent or symbolism, or it wasn’t there.
Some passages felt like they were trying to be lyrical or witty but didn’t arrive.
I felt either I didn’t understand the author’s intent or symbolism, or it wasn’t there.
Some passages felt like they were trying to be lyrical or witty but didn’t arrive.
August 8, 2025
Heart wrenching, so original, insanely beautiful. I've never read anything like this. What an incredible way with words, what a deep and profound understanding of the human experience. I can't even put into words how much this book touched me.
December 17, 2024
really stunning. safekeep fans, you need to pick this up next
April 24, 2025
Gorgeous! Word-perfect. Brief but beautiful.
May 8, 2025
A spare, evocative musing on endings and so-called endings. I loved this, it's made me want to read all of Rowe's other books.
May 18, 2025
Written like a dream almost, very poetic and kind of timeless but weirdly so readable. I couldn’t put it down
August 14, 2025
Not for me.
August 17, 2025
Boring
August 31, 2025
A strange and lovely little book.
August 31, 2025
Weird and haunting. Will read again. Claire Keegan meets As I Lay Dying.
February 17, 2025
middle section slapped, front and back sections did not slap as much.
Displaying 1 - 25 of 25 reviews