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  • Published: 31 October 2013
  • ISBN: 9781448190898
  • Imprint: Vintage Digital
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 192

The Book Of Colour

A Family Memoir




'Formidable... memorable and poetic' - Evening Standard

'Wandering through dreams and nightmares from Praslin Islands to Mauritius and finally to England, the author unfolds the troubled lives of her forbears, cursed by racial prejudice, sexual inhibition and recurrent mental illness. This first novel is a powerfully and cleverly written expurgation of personal feelings, drawing the reader into a landscape like that of a Dali painting' - Eileen Cowey, Scotland on Sunday

The Book of Colour is about childhood, about madness, about the fear of miscegenation - and about a pig. It establishes Julia Blackburn as one of the most original English writers since Chatwin. It was shortlisted for The Orange Prize 1996.

  • Published: 31 October 2013
  • ISBN: 9781448190898
  • Imprint: Vintage Digital
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 192

About the author

Julia Blackburn

Julia Blackburn is an author and scriptwriter whose radio plays include A Good Death, Betsy and Napoleon, The Need for Nonsense and The Spellbound Horses.

Also by Julia Blackburn

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Praise for The Book Of Colour

Her narrative vibrates with symbolism and portent. Every event, every encounter, every object shimmers with talismanic power

Michiko Kakutani, New York Times

As a book about the partiality of family history and the peculiar spells of memory, The Book of Colour could hardly be bettered

Observer

A brilliant fantasy of bizarre and magical imagination

Mary Wesley, Daily Mail