The Great Undoing by Sharlene Allsopp
How long can you run from a lie, if that lie is what your life is founded on?
In a near future all identity information is encoded in digital language. Nations know where everyone is, all the time. Not everyone agrees with this constant surveillance, and when the system is hijacked and shut down, all global borders are closed. The world is no longer connected, and there is no back-up plan to establish belonging, ownership or trade.
Scarlet Friday, whose job is to correct historical record, is stranded on the wrong side of the globe. Befriended by a stranger, she grabs an old, faded history book and writes her own version over the top—a record of the Great Undoing on the run.
But in deciding what truth to tell Scarlet must face her own history. How do we navigate identity when it is all a lie? She must reckon with her past before she can imagine her future.
‘Sharlene Allsopp's debut novel is a remarkable achievement. Through the art of great storytelling she challenges us to respond to a threat to our very existence; our understanding of who we are, where we come from and the knowledge systems that will bind us into the future. The Great Undoing is a book for all time -our past, present, and an increasingly precarious future.’
