Only a Little While Here

A Novel
This prize-winning debut novel braids together four sweetly- and sharply observed narratives about the joys and trials of migration—each told from the perspective of an animal protagonist.
Winner of the Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz Prize • Winner of Colombia’s National Novel Award

This prizewinning novel interweaves four animal odysseys in a gripping, adventurous meditation on migration and displacement in the inextricable human and natural worlds.

In Only a Little While Here, award-winning author María Ospina evokes the gratification to be found through close, humble observation of nature. With characteristic precision and intensity, Ospina trains our attention on the lives of five creatures: a migratory songbird dazzled by city lights, an orphaned porcupine saved by kindness, two dogs grieving the loss of their human companions, and a determined beetle transported to a vast, unimaginable world. The surprising drama of their lives reveals the fragility and power of belonging, and what it means to create—or lose—a home. Along the way, our narrator models the attentiveness needed to mend the rift between humans and non-human creatures and celebrates animals’ often-overlooked status as witnesses of our shared world.

Alive with eagle-eyed curiosity, Only a Little While Here is ecological fiction at its most soul stirring.