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"A propulsive powerhouse of a read."--Marie Claire (UK)"Ambitious, brave, and strange."--Philip Hoare, author of LeviathanFrom the National Book Critics Circle Award-winning author, a feminist reimagining of Herman Melville's classic Moby-Dick through the eyes of one inimitable woman and a diverse, swashbuckling crewI must work on a ship as a man . . . 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.
Years later, as the American Civil War breaks out, 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 amidst the bloody male violence of whaling and discovers a mysterious bond between herself and the white whale who claimed Seneca's leg.
Built on the bones of Melville's classic,
Call Me Ishmaelle is a dynamic new tale, imbued with an eclectic crew--from a Polynesian harpooner to a Taoist Monk--and a powerful exploration of human nature, gender, man's place among the animals, and the nature of home.
About the author
Xiaolu Guo is the award-winning author of
Village of Stone,
A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers,
Twenty Fragments of a Ravenous Youth,
I Am China,
A Lover's Discourse,
Nine Continents, and
Radical. She lives in London.
