Home is many people and places and languages,some separated by oceans.
Nina Mingya Powles first learned to swim in Borneo - where her mother was born and her grandfather studied freshwater fish. There,the local swimming pool became her first body of water. Through her life there have been others that have meant different things,but have still been,in their own way,home: from the wild coastline of New Zealand to a pond in northwest London.
This collection of essays explores the bodies of water that separate and connect us,as well as everything from migration,food,family,earthquakes and the ancient lunisolar calendar to butterflies. In lyrical,powerful prose,Small Bodies of Water weaves together personal memories,dreams and nature writing. It reflects on a girlhood spent growing up between two cultures,and explores what it means to belong.
Publisher: Canongate BooksISBN: 9781838852184Number of pages: 272Weight: 184 gDimensions: 198 x 129 x 17 mmEdition: Main
MEDIA REVIEWS
'A remarkable book...Its language trembles on the brink of poetry; these sentences have surety to their rhythms,subtlety to their weightings.'- Robert Macfarlane
'Nina Mingya Powles is a distinctive new voice: attentive and tender. Her experience of belonging to many places is one that so many of us can relate to. This book is a beautiful personal journey through plants and sea creatures,food and language...A gorgeous read'- Amy Liptrot
'Elegant,understated,urgent and nourishing,this is a book that gives shape to the many intimate waters that connect us,to languages loved,lost and longed for,to the lands that honour us by giving us a home. With poetic precision,Nina Mingya Powles shows us what nature writing can be,braiding place,food,family,migration and all their legacies. This is non-fiction at its most dynamic,its most transporting. I will keep this book close by and return to it often'- Jessica J. Lee
'So cool and crystalline,but with deep currents of association shifting like tides beneath'- Melissa Harrison
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