Lying Perfectly Still - Paperback

by Laura Fish (Author)

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

Leaving Oxford and the shocking death of her father behind, Koliwe travels to AIDS-ravaged Eswatini to take a job as an aid worker. Enmeshed in the cold bureaucracy of her office and a queasily erotic relationship with her supervisor, Koliwe begins to feel increasingly split between her British upbringing and African roots--especially when she connects with a local girl and aid recipient named Thandi.

When Thandi goes missing, Koliwe's search for truth leads her deep into the mountains, towards the harsh reality of the injustice underlying their lives. Tangled in the knotted web spun by corrupt colonial outposts and the instability they breed, Koliwe bears the consequences of uncovering inconvenient secrets. Late author Laura Fish's final offering burrows under the skin with pervasive mystery, veering between the dream and nightmare of one woman's return from diaspora.

Author Biography

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.