The Back of the Turtle
E587970
The Back of the Turtle is a novel by Thomas King that explores environmental disaster, Indigenous identity, and corporate responsibility through a scientist’s return to his devastated home community.
All labels observed (1)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| The Back of the Turtle canonical | 1 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T6361945 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: The Back of the Turtle Context triple: [Thomas King, notableWork, The Back of the Turtle]
-
A.
The Turtle Hospital
The Turtle Hospital is a rehabilitation and conservation facility in the Florida Keys dedicated to rescuing, treating, and releasing injured sea turtles while educating the public about marine conservation.
-
B.
The Snail
The Snail is a late-career cut-out collage by Henri Matisse that arranges bold, colorful paper shapes into a semi-abstract spiral composition.
-
C.
The Bent Twig
The Bent Twig is an essay featured in the magazine Against the Current, likely addressing political or social issues from a critical or leftist perspective.
-
D.
The Dream of the Blue Turtles
The Dream of the Blue Turtles is Sting's debut solo studio album, blending pop, rock, and jazz influences and marking his artistic transition after leaving The Police.
-
E.
The Pond
The Pond is a picturesque man-made lake in the southeast corner of New York City's Central Park, known for its tranquil scenery, wildlife, and views of the surrounding skyline.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: The Back of the Turtle Target entity description: The Back of the Turtle is a novel by Thomas King that explores environmental disaster, Indigenous identity, and corporate responsibility through a scientist’s return to his devastated home community.
-
A.
The Turtle Hospital
The Turtle Hospital is a rehabilitation and conservation facility in the Florida Keys dedicated to rescuing, treating, and releasing injured sea turtles while educating the public about marine conservation.
-
B.
The Snail
The Snail is a late-career cut-out collage by Henri Matisse that arranges bold, colorful paper shapes into a semi-abstract spiral composition.
-
C.
The Bent Twig
The Bent Twig is an essay featured in the magazine Against the Current, likely addressing political or social issues from a critical or leftist perspective.
-
D.
The Dream of the Blue Turtles
The Dream of the Blue Turtles is Sting's debut solo studio album, blending pop, rock, and jazz influences and marking his artistic transition after leaving The Police.
-
E.
The Pond
"The Pond" is a painting by British artist L. S. Lowry, depicting an industrial urban scene in his distinctive naïve style populated by matchstick-like figures.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (46)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf | novel ⓘ |
| addresses |
colonialism’s impact on Indigenous communities
ⓘ
reconciliation with the past ⓘ |
| author | Thomas King ⓘ |
| award | Governor General’s Award for English-language fiction ⓘ |
| countryOfOrigin | Canada ⓘ |
| depicts |
contaminated land and water
ⓘ
corporate environmental negligence ⓘ |
| explores |
impact of corporate actions on Indigenous lands
ⓘ
moral responsibility of scientists ⓘ relationship between humans and the environment ⓘ survivor guilt ⓘ |
| focusesOn | return of a prodigal character to home community ⓘ |
| genre |
Indigenous literature
ⓘ
environmental fiction ⓘ literary fiction ⓘ |
| hasAuthorEthnicity | Indigenous (Cherokee and Greek) author ⓘ |
| hasConflictType |
man versus self
ⓘ
man versus society ⓘ |
| hasCriticalReception | critically acclaimed ⓘ |
| hasCulturalContext | contemporary Canadian Indigenous experience ⓘ |
| hasEnvironmentalIssue |
industrial pollution
ⓘ
toxic contamination ⓘ |
| hasForm | prose narrative ⓘ |
| hasIndigenousCommunityRepresentation | First Nations community ⓘ |
| hasIndigenousPerspective | yes ⓘ |
| hasMoralQuestion | what is owed to communities harmed by science and industry ⓘ |
| hasPageForm |
digital edition
ⓘ
print ⓘ |
| hasProtagonistBackground | scientist formerly employed by a corporation ⓘ |
| hasTargetAudience | adult readers ⓘ |
| isPartOf | contemporary Canadian literature ⓘ |
| language | English ⓘ |
| literaryDevice |
myth and legend integration
ⓘ
satire ⓘ |
| mainCharacterRole | scientist ⓘ |
| mainTheme |
Indigenous identity
ⓘ
corporate responsibility ⓘ ecological justice ⓘ environmental disaster ⓘ return to homeland ⓘ |
| narrativeStyle | multi-perspective narrative ⓘ |
| publisher |
HarperCollins Canada
ⓘ
linked to:
HarperCollins
|
| setting | Indigenous community ⓘ |
| settingCharacteristic | devastated by environmental catastrophe ⓘ |
| timePeriodOfPublication | 21st century ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: The Back of the Turtle Description of subject: The Back of the Turtle is a novel by Thomas King that explores environmental disaster, Indigenous identity, and corporate responsibility through a scientist’s return to his devastated home community.
Referenced by (1)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.