A landmark new collection from T. S. Eliot Prize-winner Sarah Howe, navigating the complex inheritance of family, language and colonialism - and forming a portrait of a mother in search of her past and herself.
'Unearthed in a clear-out, a picture calendar she's kept
- hoarding, I've learnt, is a mark of the emigrant -
across continents and time.'
So begins Sarah Howe's extraordinary new collection, returning to the riddle of belonging she explored in her award-winning debut, Loop of Jade. At the heart is her own mother's clouded past: abandoned as a baby and taken in, at the turbulent dawn of Communist China, by a woman with her own hidden motives.
Now a mother herself, Howe finds herself re-examining this unreliable narrative with fresh sight. Sifting through her own history, the poet asks, how can a new generation transform a shattered inheritance? And what is lost and gained in the pursuit?
Foretokens is a monumental work of survival and creation, turning over what is left behind as it strikes out towards astonishing new vistas.
'Foretokens arrives . . . as a kind of literary event . . . It's a work of supreme concision. Not a word is out of place' Lucy Thynne, Telegraph
| ISBN: | 9781784746131 |
| Publication date: | 2nd October 2025 |
| Author: | Sarah Howe |
| Publisher: | Chatto & Windus an imprint of Random House |
| Format: | Paperback |
| Pagination: | 128 pages |
| Primary Genre | Poetry |
| Other Genres: |
A landmark new collection from T. S. Eliot Prize-winner Sarah Howe, navigating the complex inheritance of family, language and colonialism - and forming a portrait of a mother in search of her past and herself.
'Unearthed in a clear-out, a picture calendar she's kept
- hoarding, I've learnt, is a mark of the emigrant -
across continents and time.'
So begins Sarah Howe's extraordinary new collection, returning to the riddle of belonging she explored in her award-winning debut, Loop of Jade. At the heart is her own mother's clouded past: abandoned as a baby and taken in, at the turbulent dawn of Communist China, by a woman with her own hidden motives.
Now a mother herself, Howe finds herself re-examining this unreliable narrative with fresh sight. Sifting through her own history, the poet asks, how can a new generation transform a shattered inheritance? And what is lost and gained in the pursuit?
Foretokens is a monumental work of survival and creation, turning over what is left behind as it strikes out towards astonishing new vistas.
'Foretokens arrives . . . as a kind of literary event . . . It's a work of supreme concision. Not a word is out of place' Lucy Thynne, Telegraph
Foretokens features in the following genres: Poetry, Poetry by individual poets, Colonialism and imperialism, Narrative theme: Love and relationships, Narrative theme: Displacement, exile, migration
Foretokens is available in Paperback
Foretokens was written by Sarah Howe and published by Chatto & Windus an imprint of Random House
Foretokens has 128 pages
£11.69
