by ShenaMackay (Author)
The Nautilus, a strange building shaped like the chambered shell of the same name, was built in South London in the early 1930s. Designed on Modernist and Utopian principles, it was a haven for a floating community of cosmopolitan refugees, intellectuals and artists. Now, at the end of the century, only two of the original inhabitants still occupy their chambers - Celeste Zylberstein, joint architect with her late husband of the Nautilus, and Francis Campion, an elderly poet. Gus Crabb, a dealer in bric-a-brac, is the only other resident until, to the Nautilus, like a hermit crab seeking a home, comes Rowena Snow. Of Indian/Scottish parentage, orphaned, without family or friends, Rowena is in search of her own Utopia - or the Heligoland of her childhood imagination. Shorlisted for the Orange Prize for fiction and the Whitbread Novel Award.
Format: Paperback
Pages: 208
Edition: New edition
Publisher: Vintage
Published: 01 Jan 2004
ISBN 10: 0099273594
ISBN 13: 9780099273592
Book Overview: 'A slender, intelligent fiction written in ravishing prose... If I read a better novel this year, I shall think myself lucky' - Sunday Telegraph Shortlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction and the Whitbread Novel Award.
Prizes: Shortlisted for Orange Prize for Fiction 2003 and Whitbread Prize (Novel) 2003.