Heligoland

Shena Mackay

Oct 2012 · Random House

About this ebook

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.

About the author

Shena Mackay was born in Edinburgh. She is the author of five collections of stories - Babies in Rhinestones, Dreams of Dead Women's Handbags, The Laughing Academy, The World's Smallest Unicorn and The Atmospheric Railway: New and Selected Stories. Her novels include Dunedin, The Orchard on Fire (which was shortlisted for the 1996 Booker Prize) and The Artist's Widow.