Product details
- ISBN 9781805301271
- Weight: 255g
- Dimensions: 135 x 204mm
- Publication Date: 28 Aug 2025
- Publisher: Canongate Books
- Publication City/Country: GB
- Product Form: Hardback
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LONGLISTED FOR THE JHALAK PRIZE 2026
'Witty, inventive and sensual' ABDULRAZAK GURNAH, Nobel Prize Laureate
'A prodigiously talented and uncompromising writer' ALI SMITH
'Original' Guardian
'Dazzling' ANDREW McMILLAN
'A jewel of a novel' MENDEZ
When she takes a leap to leave Zimbabwe behind for Brighton, England, young Shamiso must find a new family and a new way of living. It is there she falls for George, sometimes Georgie, whose gender fluidity mirrors Shamiso's own shapeshifting heart as a woman caught between her desire to belong and profound yearning to find herself.
Quirky, challenging and mischievous, this tender coming-of-age story brilliantly examines selfhood, love and the many shapes family can take. From first moments to final steps, Shamiso is a shimmering, blazing work of modern existence and all its contradictions.
Brian Chikwava is a London-based writer and author of Harare North, longlisted for the 2010 Orwell Prize for political writing. His short fiction has appeared in anthologies published by Picador, Granta, Weaver Press, Jacana, Umuzi and has been aired on BBC Radios 3, 4 and the World Service. He has held fellowships at Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Studies (South Africa), the University of East Anglia (Charles Pick Fellowship, UK), the Santa Maddalena Foundation (Italy), Maison Dora Maar (France), Civitella Ranieri Foundation (Italy) and Marguerite Yourcenar Villa (France). Brian won the Caine Prize for African Writing in 2004 with his short story 'Seventh Street Alchemy'.
@BrianChikwava
