Call Me Ishmaelle

I must work on a ship as a man... Yes, I must seek a new life, more adventurous than that of my fellows on this desolate salt marsh. I must find freedom on the seas. 1843. Ishmaelle is born in a small village on the stormy Kent coast where she grows up swimming with dolphins. After her parents and infant sister die, her brother, Joseph, leaves to find work as a sailor. Abandoned and desperate for a life at sea, Ishmaelle disguises herself as a cabin boy and travels to New York. Call Me Ishmaelle reimagines the epic battle between man and nature in Herman Melville''s Moby Dick from a female perspective. As the American Civil War breaks out in 1861, Ishmaelle boards the Nimrod, a whaling ship led by the obsessive Captain Seneca, a Black free man of heroic stature who is haunted by a tragic past. Here, she finds protectors in Polynesian harpooner, Kauri, and Taoist monk, Muzi, whose readings of the I-Ching guide their quest. Through the bloody male violence of whaling, and the unveiling of her feminine identity, Ishmaelle realises there is a mysterious bond between herself and the mythical white whale, Moby Dick. Xiaolu Guo has crafted a dramatically different, feminist narrative that stands alongside the original while offering a powerful exploration of nature, gender and human purpose.

About the author

Xiaolu Guo was born in China. She published six books before moving to Britain in 2002. Her books include: Village of Stone, shortlisted for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize; A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers, shortlisted for the Orange Prize; and I Am China. Her recent memoir, Once Upon a Time in the East, won the National Book Critics Circle Award, was shortlisted for the Costa Biography Award and the Rathbones Folio Prize 2018. It was a Sunday Times Book of the Year. Her most recent novel A Lover's Discourse was shortlisted for the Goldsmiths Prize 2020. She is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and a visiting professor at the Free University in Berlin.

Product details

• Authors: Xiaolu Guo, Guo Xiaolu
• Publisher: Chatto and Windus
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 20.03.2025
• EAN: 9781784745615
• ISBN: 978-1-78474-561-5
• No. of pages: 431
• Dimensions: 154 mm x 235 mm x 33 mm
• Subjects: Fiction > Narrative literature; New York City, Kent, FICTION / Historical / General, FICTION / Women, FICTION / Literary, FICTION / Friendship, FICTION / Action & Adventure, FICTION / Sea Stories, FICTION / Small Town & Rural, Sea stories, Fiction: pastiche, Feminism and feminist theory, FICTION / Feminist, FICTION / Nature & the Environment, c 1860 to c 1869, Narrative theme: Environmental issues / the natural world, Fiction: Traditional stories, myths and fairy tales, Narrative theme: Journeys and voyages, FICTION / Diversity & Multicultural, Modern and contemporary fiction: literary and general, Narrative theme: love / relationships, Narrative theme: diversity, equity, equality, inclusion