Description

In her mid-twenties, shortly before her father’s death, Davina Quinlivan moved from her family home in west London to begin a transitory life in the countryside: here she felt restless and rootless, stuck between Deep England and the technicolour memories of her family’s migration story.

Beginning in colonial India and Burma, from the indigenous tribes from which the women in Quinlivan’s family are descended, and reaching the streets of Southall and Ealing, the stories of her ancestors persisted in the tales, the language, the cooking and culture of her family. Quinlivan conjures a place between continents and worlds in a lyrical debut of migration, and homecoming, marking the arrival of an exceptional new voice.

Publisher Review

'Davina Quinlivan is a writer of rare gentleness and insight: In Shalimar she winds us into the skein of her extended diasporic family, expressing the complexity of identity today. Deftly she weaves back and forth in time, as she braids these memories, in a sustained, observant, poetic act of attention, and love.' Marina Warner; 'Evocative and heartfelt.' Helena Lee; 'A haunted archive, a casket full of memories, myths and dreams. A strange and startling cargo of ancestors, brought vividly to life by a magician.' Jeff Young; 'Shalimar is dreamlike and full of sensation. Quinlivan constellates memory, place and belonging with rarely-seen subtlety.' Jessica J. Lee