"This beautifully-written novel explores a young woman’s dislocation in the wake of her father’s death, while also unpacking the ethics of international aid and abuses of power in Eswatini."
Commanding, lyrical and authentically voiced, Laura Fish’s Lying Perfectly Still also gives voice to the voiceless of Eswatini (formerly Swaziland) through the page-turning story of Koliwe, a young Oxford-raised woman who takes a job as an aid worker to, in part, connect with her father and heritage in the wake of his tragic death.
While her father once warned, “Don’t ever go to Swaziland… they’ll eat you alive”, the pull is too great: “the dream to escape to find a new life churns and grows, and cannot be suppressed”. But on arrival in a country that’s ravaged by AIDS, Koliwe feels out of place in all worlds, and quickly becomes aware of her naïveté.
First, there’s the world of wealthy ex-pats who declare “Tribalism’s all wrong”, and “African leaders are corrupt and inept”. Then there’s her struggle with fellow aid workers, not least when she meets local girl Thandi, whose vanishing unravels a mesh of secrets and exploitation.
Incisive on abuses of power committed by — and within — aid organisations, Lying Perfectly Still also evokes the pain of falling between two cultures in poignant style. It’s also an exquisitely written feat of fiction.
| Primary Genre | Modern and Contemporary Fiction |
| Other Genres: | |
| Recommendations: |
Leaving Oxford and the shocking death of her father behind, Koliwe travels to AIDS-ravaged Eswatini to take a job as an aid worker. The Southern Africa she encounters is a far cry from her father's stories.
As she becomes enmeshed with Thandi, a local girl hiding a disturbing past, Koliwe feels increasingly split between her English identity and her rediscovered African roots.
When Thandi goes missing, Koliwe's search for truth leads her deep into the mountains, where the harsh realities of wealth, poverty, tradition and modernity, clash.
Harrowing yet richly evocative, Lying Perfectly Still, written from an insider's perspective, offers a searing exposé of the exploitation that has plagued the international development sector.
Lying Perfectly Still features in the following genres: Books of the Month, General Fiction, Historical Fiction, Modern and Contemporary Fiction, Narrative theme: Politics, Social and ethical issues, Fiction, Fiction: narrative themes, Society and culture: general, Society and Social Sciences
Lying Perfectly Still is available in Paperback
Lying Perfectly Still was written by Laura Fish and published by Fly on the Wall Press
Lying Perfectly Still has 200 pages
£9.89
