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The book combines the ancient legends and myths of the Australian Aboriginals, as well as the original "totem" of the so-called "Dream Age" they believe in, with various contradictions in real life, and paints a magnificent picture. The author Alexis Wright takes the contradiction between two indigenous tribes as the main line, intertwining the internal struggles of the two tribes as well as the struggle between the new and old generations of the two tribes to launch a series of dramatic conflicts.

The narrator stands as a spokesman for an indigenous nation that has been overrun and abused by imperialist colonizers. He recalls the deep beauty of his homeland in a lyrical and stream-of-consciousness way, and accuses imperialists and chauvinists, mainly in the Western world, of exploiting and alienating the simple creatures of this nation. When the indigenous civilization met the Western civilization, under the strong impact of the economy, military, technology and civilization of the Western industrial civilization, the indigenous civilization retreated and died. People were forced to leave their homeland, their familiar production methods and daily routines, and go to the Western civilized world to earn wages and make a living. While describing this change, the author also brings up a global dilemma we are facing today: forced migration.

Is the mute woman's swan song the cry of human society before the end? Alexis Wright uses his signature style of "Indigenous Magical Realism" to create a literary masterpiece with a confusing plot. Through the heroine's ups and downs experience of being abused and unable to speak, it sends a deafening cry for vulnerable groups such as women and indigenous people. A hundred years from now, the environment will deteriorate due to the climate crisis. In the Northern Territory of Australia, a mute girl was gang-raped as a child by three teenagers who snorted gasoline, and then fell into a hole under the roots of a eucalyptus tree and fell asleep. Ten years later, she was rescued by Bella Dona, a climate refugee and an old white woman, and named "Forgotten Vinyl". Bella raised her and told her stories about swans throughout the ages every day. After Bella's death, the mute girl lived with the swans that Bella fed by the lake, and was called the Swan Girl. Many years later, Warren Finch, who had a baby engagement with Swan Girl, became the first Aboriginal president in Australian history. He went to Swan Lake to marry the mute girl, but took her to the city under house arrest. He also sent people to blow up Swan Lake, which was filled with Aboriginal people, climate refugees and swans. Later Finch was killed and the flood came...