Novel and the Multispecies Soundscape

The contemporary novel is not as silent as we tend to believe, nor does it onlyattend to human plots and characters. As this book shows, writers in a range ofsubgenres have devoted considerable attention to the voices of nonhumananimals, and to the histories and technologies of listening that shape twenty-first-century cultures and environments. In doing so, their multispecies novelsilluminate the cultural meanings we attach to creatures like dogs, frogs, whales,chimpanzees, and Tasmanian tigers - not to mention various bird species andeven plants. At the same time, these stories explore the attitudes of distinctcommunities of human listeners, ranging from vets and musicians to chimpcaretakers and sonar technicians. In highlighting animal sounds and their culturalmeanings, these novels by authors including Amitav Ghosh, Julia Leigh, RichardPowers, Karen Joy Fowler, Cormac McCarthy, and Han Kang also enrich pressingdebates about species extinction, sound pollution, nonhuman communication,and human-animal relations. As we are violently reshaping the planet, they inviteus to reimagine our own humanity and animality - and to rethink how we tellstories about multispecies contact zones and their complex soundscapes.