The book of colour - Julia Blackburn

'Wandering through dreams and nightmares from Praslin Islands to Mauritius and finally to England, the author unfolds the troubled lives of her forbears, cursed by racial prejudice, sexual inhibition and recurrent mental illness. This first novel is a powerfully and cleverly written expurgation of personal feelings, drawing the reader into a landscape like that of a Dali painting' - Eileen Cowey, Scotland on Sunday

The Book of Colour is about childhood, about madness, about the fear of miscegenation - and about a pig. It establishes Julia Blackburn as one of the most original English writers since Chatwin. It was shortlisted for The Orange Prize 1996.