Watermarks: Life, Death and Swimming

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Lenka Janiurek first encounters tragedy with the death of her mother when sheis just nine. Involving a chaotic family, early success as a playwright, disastrous relationships, motherhood, and brushes with both extreme wealth and poverty, Janiurek's rich and remarkable memoir is been a search for a kind of freedom, found in the comforting solace of swimming.

Haunted by the despair, rage and addiction of men she has known best, she nevertheless explores and celebrates the beauty and pain of living life to the full. Watermarks is a stunning evocation of identity and alienation, and the restorative power of the natural world.

Reviews

'An amazing piece of work.' - Kate Saunders

'Freighted with memory, Watermarks is as exquisitely constructed as a bowerbird's nest. Each word becomes a tile in a sparkling mosaic. It is a treasure of lived experience.' - Kate Norbury, author of The Fish Ladder

Author Bio

LENKA JANIUREK was born in York. After winning a competition at the age of 17, she had three plays on at the Royal Court Theatre, a platform play at the National Theatre, and one at the Other Place with the RSC in Stratford-on-Avon. She has facilitated workshops in writing, drama, art and well-being, in schools, colleges, at camps, and in a women's prison. And worked as a baker, fundraiser, caretaker, green builder and researcher. She now lives close to the sea in Wales.