Editions

The Book Of Colour

  • Imprint: Vintage

  • ISBN: 9780099440734

  • Length: 192  Pages

  • Dimensions: 198mm x 13mm x 129mm

  • Weight: 139g

  • RRP: £9.99

The Book Of Colour

  • A Family Memoir

'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.

  • Imprint: Vintage

  • ISBN: 9780099440734

  • Length: 192  Pages

  • Dimensions: 198mm x 13mm x 129mm

  • Weight: 139g

  • RRP: £9.99

Reviews

  • 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

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About the Author

Julia Blackburn

Julia Blackburn has written ten books of non-fiction, the most recent of which, Time Song, was shortlisted for the 2019 Wainwright Golden Beer Book Prize. Her family memoir The Three of Us won the 2009 J.R. Ackerley Award, and her two novels, The Book of Colour and The Leper’s Companions, were both shortlisted for the Orange Prize. She lives in Suffolk and Italy.

Julia Blackburn

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