The release date for the English version of 'The Sparrow' by
Mary Doria Russell is Sep 1997. If you enjoy this novel, it is available for buy as a paperback from Barnes & Noble or Indigo, as an ebook on the Amazon Kindle store, or as an audiobook on Audible.
2019 will see the discovery of conclusive evidence of alien life when a listening station in Puerto Rico detects beautiful singing from a planet that will be called Rakhat. The Society of Jesus covertly sets off on an eight-person research expedition of its own, as diplomats from the United Nations ponder endlessly about the feasibility of a first contact mission. What the Jesuits find is a world so beyond comprehension that it will lead them to question what it means to be "human".