Présentation de l'éditeur
The Nautilus, a strange building shaped like the chambered shell of the same name, was built in South London in the early 1930s. Designed on Modernist and Utopian principles, it was a haven for a floating community of cosmopolitan refugees, intellectuals and artists.
Now, at the end of the century, only two of the original inhabitants still occupy their chambers - Celeste Zylberstein, joint architect with her late husband of the Nautilus, and Francis Campion, an elderly poet. Gus Crabb, a dealer in bric-a-brac, is the only other resident until, to the Nautilus, like a hermit crab seeking a home, comes Rowena Snow. Of Indian/Scottish parentage, orphaned, without family or friends, Rowena is in search of her own Utopia - or the Heligoland of her childhood imagination.
Shorlisted for the Orange Prize for fiction and the Whitbread Novel Award.
Revue de presse
"With what tenderness, rage, wit and accuracy Mackay writes about loneliness and belonging-What a brilliant novel this is" (
Independent on Sunday)
"Elegant, elusive... The writing is superb-[Mackay's] gentle mastery of language is quite beyond showy displays of technique" (
Guardian)
"An intriguing, witty and provocative story" (
Daily Mail)
"Tender, funny and wonderfully realised" (
Sunday Express)
"Shena Mackay is a national treasure... She has achieved that rarest of things for a writer: creating a world that is utterly her own" (
Daily Telegraph)
Biographie de l'auteur
Shena Mackay was born in Edinburgh. She is the author of five collections of stories -
Babies in Rhinestones,
Dreams of Dead Women's Handbags,
The Laughing Academy,
The World's Smallest Unicorn and
The Atmospheric Railway: New and Selected Stories. Her novels include
Dunedin,
The Orchard on Fire (which was shortlisted for the 1996 Booker Prize) and
The Artist's Widow
.
