Wallflowers

(Paperback)

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________________ 'Assured and ambitious' - Guardian 'A young writer who succeeds in imagining the world afresh' - Independent 'Confirms her as a significant new talent sharp, illuminating' - Independent on Sunday ________________ From the winner of the Commonwealth Short Story Prize comes a delicate and startling collection about the adventure within the ordinary and the magic within everyday life A small boy and his grandmother set sail for China in the mud of her back yard; a supermarket car park becomes a graveyard of strewn blueberries; migratory birds fly over a marshland ringing with the sound of wooden spoons on kitchen pots; and the breaking of a silence between two roommates leads to disquieting revelations. Eliza Robertsons delicate and startling stories tell of the adventure of the ordinary and the magic within the everyday. Here there are swindlers and innocents, unlikely heroes and gritty survivors; they teach us how to trap hummingbirds, relinquish dreams gracefully and feed raccoons without getting bitten. From windswept Pacific beaches to cafs in the heart of Lisbon, and from the depths of puddles on mountain running paths to the heights of extrasolar plant 51 Osiris C, these are tales of wildness and wonder, of animals in search of an escape and outsiders looking for a way back in.

Reviews

Confirms her as a significant new talent The ordinary and everyday become imbued with a strange significance, albeit with a feather-light touch; Robertsons prose is never weighed down, even as it imparts a sense of uneasiness, anticipation Robertson lets images vibrate with possibilities. Almost every story, individually, is sharp, illuminating * Independent on Sunday *
The stories in Eliza Robertsons first collection are filled with lush flora and fauna, both real and figurative Assured and ambitious * Guardian *
Her stories display a startlingly original way of looking at the world, finding magic and mystery in ordinary life An exciting new voice in short fiction * The Lady *
Robertson is often thus adventurous when it comes to her structures Its the richness of her prose that draws one in * Independent *
Robertsons prose can stand alongside any writer I think to name her style and her stories are uniquely her own, at once observant and playful, sometimes wise, sometimes ironic, always lyrical and always haunting * D. W. Wilson, author of Ballistics *
Captivating Amid the catastrophe, there is a delicate beauty in the details Robertson selects * Scotland on Sunday *
An unsettling debut collection of short stories * Mail on Sunday *
Wallflowers is perfect for dipping in and out of, like a bag of pick n mix; the stories have varied settings and the narrators are all snappingly distinct. And like pick n mix, its difficult to stop after just one * Metro *
A young writer who succeeds in imagining the world afresh * Independent *

Author Bio

Eliza Robertson attended the University of Victoria and the University of East Anglia, where she received the 2011 Man Booker Scholarship. In 2013, she won the Commonwealth Short Story Prize and was a finalist for the CBC Short Story Prize and the Journey Prize. Her first story collection, Wallflowers, was shortlisted for the East Anglia Book Award and selected as a New York Times Editors Choice. In 2015, she was named one of five emerging writers for the Writers Trust Five x Five program. She lives in Montreal. elizarobertson.com @ElizaRoberts0n