Raw, visceral and haunting, this astonishing account of a woman's life on a remote island in the Hebrides draws in big themes around solitude and friendship, resiliance and survival, and merits comparison with The Outrun.
Tamsin Calidas is a writer and photographer living in the wilds of
the Scottish Hebrides.
She worked in various roles in advertising, publishing and the BBC
before giving it all up in 2004 to move to a tiny, remote island in
Scotland to run a derelict croft with sheep and horses.
A wondrous, sensuous memoir of salt-stung survival… clear-eyed and
poetic prose. Over and above everything else, I Am an Island is a
hymn to the wild, full of fine observation of the natural world. A
message that rings true for these testing times.
*The Sunday Times*
Calidas is a supple, sensuous writer - deeply empathetic... Her
account is shot through with moments of intense brightness.
*Guardian*
This is a startling book, a vivid and terrifying reminder of how an
island can seduce, madden - and ultimately sustain those brave
enough to endure its confines.
*Madeleine Bunting, author of Love of Country*
An extraordinary book, a wild and redemptive account of reaching
rock bottom and swimming back into the light. I’m awed by Tamsin's
courage, her resilience and huge heart. Her island will stay with
me for a very long time.
*Olivia Laing, author of The Lonely City and To the River*
The best book I have read in more than a decade. Each page is
poetry. Tamsin's story is both heartbreaking and inspiring but
ultimately about how the power of nature can heal. The perfect
memoir for us all right now. Absolutely stunning. What an
incredible woman.
*Susannah Constantine*
The memoir of the year...a lyrical paean to the wild beauty of the
Hebrides.
*Vogue*
An island tale like no other. An unforgettably moving and
compulsive read, steeped in anguish and beauty. A book that is
unafraid to stare deep into the abyss, and still find a way
forward. The story of a woman completely broken by life, and her
fifteen-year struggle to find the inner strength to restore
herself, through sheer determination, and by immersing herself in
solitude.
*Neil Ansell, author of Deep Country and Deer Island*
Completely astonishing. Using language of shimmering beauty, Tamsin
Calidas describes the unravelling of a relationship with such
exquisitely small stitches that the eventual thread-baring of her
physical and emotional safety, her sense of identity and purpose,
blows in like a cold slap of Hebridean wind. A Hardyesque, stripped
back connection to the landscape emerges. And yet only with the
fragmentation of everything that matters is the fragility of life
transcended and restored by the triumphant pull of a determination
to survive.
*Juliet Nicolson*
Gripping...Tough yet compulsive reading, carried by crisp, vivid
prose.
*Amy Liptrot, author of The Outrun*
Raw, painful, storm-battered writing. Here's what it means to be
truly isolated.
*Raynor Winn*
A meditative breath of fresh air. This book will fill your lungs,
sting your eyes and catch in your throat. Soaring prose like
birdsong over the harsh lands that compelled Tamsin Calidas to
breathe deep.
*Ruth Fitzmaurice, author of I Found My Tribe*
An extraordinary book of limitless resilience, Calidas' leaping
prose is a love song to the natural world. What she achieves with
an open heart and a will of iron is nothing short of
remarkable.
*Sarah Langford, author of In Your Defence*
So raw, so honest, so intense. I didn't want this book to end.
*Sigri Sandberg, author of An Ode to Darkness*
Combining intensely beautiful nature writing with the excavation of
deep emotion, this brave, startling book examines what it really
means to lose yourself in nature, and in doing so find a completely
new version of yourself, too. A powerful, unsettling but ultimately
redemptive account of one woman’s deep communion with the natural
world.
*Clover Stroud, author of My Wild and Sleepless Nights*
Calidas is a supple, sensuous writer - deeply empathic... Her
account is shot through with moments of intense brightness.
*Guardian*
|
Ask a Question About this Product More... |
|
