Only a Little While Here - A Novel

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.

About the author

María Ospina; Translated by Heather Cleary

Product details

• Authors: María Ospina, María Ospina
• Assisted by: Heather Cleary (Translation), Cleary Heather (Translation), Heather Cleary (Translation)
• Publisher: Harper Collins
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Release: 07.05.2026
• EAN: 9781668097083
• ISBN: 978-1-6680-9708-3
• No. of pages: 224
• Dimensions: 140 mm x 213 mm x 17 mm
• Weight: 380 g
• Subjects: Fiction > Narrative literature; Modern & contemporary fiction (post c 1945), FICTION / Literary, FICTION / Animals, FICTION / World Literature / Colombia, Narrative theme: Environmental issues / the natural world, Modern and contemporary fiction: literary and general, Fiction: literary and general non-genre