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Blue Harbor · Holt
Opening book
Call Me Ishmaelle
Xiaolu Guo
2025 · Chatto & Windus · 352 pages
Fiction
About this book
Moby-Dick reimagined from the perspective of a cross-dressed female sailor 'Brilliantly written... ambitious, brave, strange' Philip Hoare 'One of the most valuable writers in the world' Deborah Levy 1843. Ishmaelle is born in a small village on the stormy Kent coast where she grows up swimming with dolphins. After her parents and infant sister die, her brother, Joseph, leaves to find work as a sailor. Abandoned and desperate for a life at sea, Ishmaelle disguises herself as a cabin boy and travels to New York. Cal…
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An ideas-driven with strong character, melancholic and immersive read.
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