Call Me Ishmaelle — Xiaolu Guo

A smart gender flipped version of Moby Dick Daily Telegraph A clever and original skewering of a classic i News A brilliantly written reordering of Moby Dick Philip HoareCall Me Ishmaelle reimagines the epic battle between man and nature in Herman Melville s Moby Dick from a female perspective perfect for fans Madeline Miller Percival Everett and Barbara KingsolverIn 1843 in a small village on the stormy Kent coast Ishmaelle is born She grows up swimming with dolphins and eventually desperate for a life at sea she disguises herself as a cabin boy and travels to New York As the American Civil War breaks out Ishmaelle boards a whaling ship led by the obsessive Captain Seneca a Black free man of heroic stature who is haunted by a tragic past Here she finds protectors amidst the bloody male violence of whaling and discovers a mysterious bond between herself and the mythical white whale Moby Dick One of the most valuable writers in the world Deborah Levy Guo has gender flipped this intimidating text with bravura and style Call Me Ishmaelle takes us on a courageous journey it s no aping of a classic rather a vision of a young woman sailing out to discover not a whale but her own self And in that it happily succeeds Daily Telegraph An astonishingly ambitious undertaking you re in the hands of a genuine storyteller New York Times Book Review Tanıtım Bülteninden