LMH alumna Dr Lorna Robinson (1996, Literae Humaniores) has published a new novel, The Birder, set in an alternate Oxford where people transform into animals instead of dying.
The book follows Merel, a researcher who embarks on a journey to understand the nature of her universe after witnessing her brother change into a blackbird.
Illustrated with linocut prints of birds around the city of Oxford, including one depicting LMH, The Birder transports the reader into a mysterious world filled with familiar sorrows and joys.
Award winning author Chris Beckett calls The Birder: “A delightful read... Charming, witty and wise, it's also a very gentle book. There's no evil antagonist, no violence, just a bunch of people trying to make sense of the pain, mystery and beauty of the world.”
Alongside her writing, Lorna is the founding director of the Iris Project, an educational charity introducing the languages and culture of the ancient world to UK state schools, with a focus on curriculum enrichment. Based at Cheney School in Oxford, the Iris Project runs a wide range of initiatives in state schools across the country, focusing especially on children in socially excluded inner city regions.
As part of her work with the Iris Project, Lorna founded and runs the Rumble Museum at Cheney, a unique partnership between an educational charity and a school. The museum is spread across various areas of the school site, and features original and replica artefacts from a range of eras and on different themes such as: War & Weaponry, Science & Medicine, Trade & Economy, Design & Technology, African Artefacts, Civil Rights and Women's Suffrage.
Lorna previously published a series of storybook courses Telling Tales in Latin: Parts 1 and 2, and Telling Tales in Greek. She has also published Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Ovid: Magical and Monstrous Realities. More recently, she embarked on a fiction project with illustrator Lydia Hall, which involved re-imagining Greek myths connected to plants. Together they published four small books in the series, Telling Tales in Nature: Underworld Tales, Forest Tales, Orchard Tales and Meadow Tales. These are now published as a compendium.
Lorna celebrated the launch of her latest book at a special launch event at LMH last year.
One of the linocuts featured in the book depicts a swan in the grounds of LMH
