Kasia Van Schaik's debut story collection follows the journey of Charlotte Ferrier, a child of divorce raised by a single mother in a small town in British Columbia after moving from South Africa.

Mother and daughter wait out the end of a bad year in a Mexican hotel; a friendship is tested as forest fires demolish Charlotte's town; a childhood friend disappears while travelling through Europe; and a girl on the beach examines the memories of dying jellyfish.

The stories traverse the most intimate and transforming moments of female experience in a world threatened by ecological crisis. (From The University of Alberta Press)

We Have Never Lived On Earth is on the 2023 Scotiabank Giller Prize longlist. The shortlist will be announced on Oct. 11.

Kasia Van Schaik is a South African poet and writer living in Montreal. We Have Never Lived On Earth is her first story collection. In 2021, she was named one of the CBC Quebec Writers' Federation writer-in-residence. Van Schaik was a finalist for the 2017 CBC Short Story Prize.