The Bluebird Café

This highly original novel confirmed award-winning author Carmel Bird as a singular talent.

A Tasmanian museum village under a glass dome (described by an apparently geographically-challenged Time magazine journalist as ‘Disneyland of the Antarctic’). A mystery of a missing person (Lovelygod, the daughter of twins Carillo and Bedrock Mean, of whom there is a statue in the museum). And an ex-pat author returning home...

The Bluebird Cafe is a dark, playful gothic story told in letters, diary entries, interviews, and even a student assignment. Reviewing the American edition which, unlike the Australian edition, has never been out of print, Kirkus Reviews described it as ‘a sweet-natured looking-glass version of Twin Peaks’.

First published in 1990, The Bluebird Café was shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Literary Award the following year.

Novelist, essayist and non-fiction writer Carmel Bird was the recipient of the Patrick White Award in 2016. Her works include The Bluebird Café (1990) and the thematically-linked Mandala trilogy The White Garden (1995), Red Shoes (1998) and Cape Grimm (2004), also all in the Untapped Collection. Her most recent novel is the acclaimed Field of Poppies (2019) of which Robert Drewe wrote: ‘How to describe Field of Poppies? A lush feast of wit and wisdom? Writing so rich you simply want to devour it? A forensic examination of an Australian country town? Literary tour de force will have to do.’