The Ventriloquist's Tale

Second printing. 8vo. 357pp. Black cloth boards lettered in gilt to spine. Ribbon place marker sewn-in. Dustwrapper designed by William Webb, with illustration by Emma Parker.

Author's first novel. Winner of the 1997 Whitbread First Novel Award and the 1998 Guyana Prize for Literature. Shortlisted for the 1998 Orange Prize. A New York Times Notable Book for 1998. A parable of miscegenation and racial exclusiveness set in South America at the time of the 1919 solar eclipse. Awarded the Guardian Fiction Prize, the PEN/ Macmillan Silver Pen Award and the Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best First Book, for her debut collection of short stories, Shape-Shifter (1990). "[A]n eye-opening fiction." –Salman Rushdie