LoveReading Says
LoveReading Says
Commanding, lyrical and authentically voiced, Laura Fish’s Lying Perfectly Still also gives voice to the voiceless of Eswatini (formerly Swaziland) through the page-turning story of Koliwe, a young Oxford-raised woman who takes a job as an aid worker to, in part, connect with her father and heritage in the wake of his tragic death.
While her father once warned, “Don’t ever go to Swaziland… they’ll eat you alive”, the pull is too great: “the dream to escape to find a new life churns and grows, and cannot be suppressed”. But on arrival in a country that’s ravaged by AIDS, Koliwe feels out of place in all worlds, and quickly becomes aware of her naïveté.
First, there’s the world of wealthy ex-pats who declare “Tribalism’s all wrong”, and “African leaders are corrupt and inept”. Then there’s her struggle with fellow aid workers, not least when she meets local girl Thandi, whose vanishing unravels a mesh of secrets and exploitation.
Incisive on abuses of power committed by — and within — aid organisations, Lying Perfectly Still also evokes the pain of falling between two cultures in poignant style. It’s also an exquisitely written feat of fiction.
Joanne Owen
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Lying Perfectly Still Synopsis
Leaving Oxford and the shocking death of her father behind, Koliwe travels to AIDS-ravaged Eswatini to take a job as an aid worker. The Southern Africa she encounters is a far cry from her father's stories.
As she becomes enmeshed with Thandi, a local girl hiding a disturbing past, Koliwe feels increasingly split between her English identity and her rediscovered African roots.
When Thandi goes missing, Koliwe's search for truth leads her deep into the mountains, where the harsh realities of wealth, poverty, tradition and modernity, clash.
Harrowing yet richly evocative, Lying Perfectly Still, written from an insider's perspective, offers a searing exposé of the exploitation that has plagued the international development sector.
About This Edition
| ISBN: |
9781915789228 |
| Publication date: |
24th October 2024 |
| Author: |
Laura Fish |
| Publisher: |
Fly on the Wall Press |
| Format: |
Paperback |
| Pagination: |
200 pages |
| Primary Genre |
Modern and Contemporary Fiction
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| Other Genres: |
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| Recommendations: |
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Author
About Laura Fish
Laura Fish is an award-winning writer of Caribbean heritage. She is a graduate of the MA in Creative Writing programme at UEA (2002) and was awarded a PhD in Creative and Critical Writing from UEA (2007).
The manuscript for her third novel, Lying Perfectly Still, was S I Leeds Reader's Choice winner 2022, and came third in the S I Leeds Literary Prize 2022.
Her second novel, Strange Music (Jonathan Cape 2008; Vintage 2009, now available penguin.co.uk) was Orange Prize listed 2009; International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award nominated 2009; selected for Pearson Edexcel's Black British Writing A level reading guide 2017/18; is taught on university courses internationally. Her first novel, Flight of Black Swans (London: Duckworth 1995) received very favourable reviews in The Guardian, the Evening Standard, and Times Literary Supplement.
Laura is one of four writers featured in the Tulsa Studies in Women's Literature special issue, 'Contemporary Black British Women's Writing: Experiments in Literary Form' pp. 211-222 (founded by Germaine Greer), alongside Bernadine Evaristo, Booker Prize winner 2022.
Since 2014, Laura has been employed at Northumbria University, U.K University of the Year, Times Higher Education (THE) Awards 2022.
Laura has over 10 years' experience with BBC in broadcast television and radio, in news, current affairs and features
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