The Rain Heron by Robbie Arnott

The Rain Heron is an evocative and poetic ecological myth set in a post-war world of climate disaster.

As such, it was never likely to offer much in the way of feel-good escapism in the middle of a pandemic.

The bird of the title is a magical creature whose translucent feathers are made of water droplets and which can throw out extreme heat, rainfall, mists or ice, bringing bounty or brutality. It is a remarkable creation, one that feels like an age-old fable from an ancient culture.

This mesmerising and beautifully written tale begins with three seemingly disparate narratives. A starving rice farmer has a near death encounter with the heron, after which her crops mysteriously flourish.

The political backdrop to the story

– the coups, the devastation, the mass movements of people – is never fully explained, but the effects are everywhere, and Arnott’s prose is thrilling when describing the untouched corners of otherwise ruined landscapes.

“The tarn lay still and mirror-like,” he writes, “just as it had when she’d first seen it. Moss still carpeted the grotto floor, green rocks still humped at the tarn’s edge, and the ancient, gnarled tree still stood on the opposite side of the water.”

Blood, pus, rot and stench are never far away in this scarred landscape, however, bones are shattered, farmland is salted and streams are poisoned with waste.

Blindness is a recurring theme, reflected both in an attempt to hide the heron’s light by caging it and covering it in a shroud and in the wound caused when a soldier’s eye is plucked out during its capture. Even with one eye, though, the soldier is still able to recognise truth, goodness and, eventually, redemption.