Synopsis
'An impressive, urgent novel by a talented and courageous writer' Mohsin Hamid
How do you mourn a person you loved who did terrible things?
After many years abroad, Harun and Roz return to Malaysian Borneo for the funeral of their oil-baron father, Yusuf - and to reckon with their inheritance. Yusef, might be a celebrity to many, but his children know that not only has he built the family's immense wealth by destroying huge tracts of rainforest, but also that he was also involved in the violent disappearance of a man who stood in his way.
Harun is successful tech entrepreneur in Los Angeles while Roz is an artist struggling to stay afloat in Sydney, and both are determined to return something their father stole from the forests of their homeland. In their quest for redemption they grapple with the legacy of power and corruption and are haunted - by the ghosts of colonialism, the ghosts of family, the ghosts of language, and the ghosts of the forest itself.
A trailblazing journey across the globe, Fierceland is a language-bending story that weaves the past and the present into an emotionally powerful family saga that plays out at a mythical scale.
'The forest may be disappearing, but in Musa's words it still grows: fierce, alive, untameable' Guardian Australia
How do you mourn a person you loved who did terrible things?
After many years abroad, Harun and Roz return to Malaysian Borneo for the funeral of their oil-baron father, Yusuf - and to reckon with their inheritance. Yusef, might be a celebrity to many, but his children know that not only has he built the family's immense wealth by destroying huge tracts of rainforest, but also that he was also involved in the violent disappearance of a man who stood in his way.
Harun is successful tech entrepreneur in Los Angeles while Roz is an artist struggling to stay afloat in Sydney, and both are determined to return something their father stole from the forests of their homeland. In their quest for redemption they grapple with the legacy of power and corruption and are haunted - by the ghosts of colonialism, the ghosts of family, the ghosts of language, and the ghosts of the forest itself.
A trailblazing journey across the globe, Fierceland is a language-bending story that weaves the past and the present into an emotionally powerful family saga that plays out at a mythical scale.
'The forest may be disappearing, but in Musa's words it still grows: fierce, alive, untameable' Guardian Australia
Details
23 July 2026
9781804443781Imprint: Footnote Press
