Lying Perfectly Still - by Laura Fish (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

A searing, suspenseful story of a woman's confrontation with the sinister legacy of British colonialism in Southern Africa.

Koliwe has grown up between two worlds: England, her white mother's home country, where she was born and raised, and Eswatini, the homeland her father left behind. When her father dies unexpectedly, Koliwe takes a job as an aid worker for a British-run nonprofit in Eswatini. There, her belief in the necessity of international aid is tested by the harsh reality of a divided country--and by her white supervisor, Cameron, whose hot-and-cold treatment simultaneously intrigues and repels her.

When a local girl, Thandi, goes missing, Koliwe begins looking into what has happened to her. But her search for truth leads her deeper down dangerous paths, entangling her with fellow aid workers, long-lost family members, and the mercurial Cameron--until she is forced to question not only the insidious dynamics of so-called aid in a colonized nation, but also her own perception of herself.

Review Quotes

Praise for Strange Music

"A provocative contribution to revisionist (and feminist) post-colonial fiction." --Times Literary Supplement

"This excellent book is worthy of comparison with Jean Rhys's Wide Sargasso Sea, which it echoes, and deserves to reach a large and appreciative audience." --The Guardian

"Once Strange Music grips you, you won't be able to put it down." --The Independent

Praise for Laura Fish

"A gifted writer, and her manipulation of language is her forte--brilliant, sensuous and shocking." --The Sunday Times

"An accomplished storyteller whose beautiful prose delivers you right into the heart of the plantation." --Time Out

About the Author

Laura Fish was an award-winning writer of Caribbean heritage who passed in October 2024. Her third novel, Lying Perfectly Still, won the SI Leeds Readers' Choice Award and came third in the SI Leeds Literary Prize in 2022. Her second novel, Strange Music (Jonathan Cape, 2008; Vintage, 2009) was listed for the 2009 Orange Prize, nominated for the 2009 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, selected for Pearson Edexcel's Contemporary Black British Literature: A Guide, and is taught in university courses internationally. She was based in the United Kingdom.