★已授權英、西、加泰隆語！
★2019年南•舍菲德獎（Nan Shepherd Prize）得主散文集
★《大地之下》作者羅伯特．麥克法倫（Robert Macfarlane）、《逃離之地》作者艾咪．利普羅特（Amy Liptrot）真摯推薦
★作者網站：https://www.ninapowles.com/

《Small Bodies of Water》抒情而具張力，以作者的個人回憶、夢想和自然寫作交織而成，藉一個女孩在兩種文化間成長的經歷探討歸屬感的意涵。

尼娜在婆羅洲的泳池學會游泳，那裡是她母親的出生地，是她祖父研究淡水魚類的地方。繼那座泳池後，她陸續見過也身處其它水體中，它們代表不同意象，而其中的意象之一是家。

這部散文集探索不同種將我們分割或連結的水體，尼娜從紐西蘭的海水寫到倫敦西北部的池塘，以此述說成長過程中多次的移居經驗和這些地方的異同；外婆過世的時候，她凝視泰晤士河的水流，讓它逐漸調節自己的呼吸，想像流水將城市的碎片帶進海裡。此外，尼娜也用水的漂浮狀態和型態的多變性比喻混血者的身分認同。

 

尼娜•明加•波爾斯（Nina Mingya Powles）同時是作家、編輯和出版人，出生在紐西蘭奧特亞羅瓦，有馬來西亞及中國血統，成長時期待過中國，現則住在倫敦。尼娜的作品包含詩集《Field Notes on a Downpour》、《Luminescent》、前進詩歌獎決選作《Magnolia, 木蘭》，以及散文集《Tiny Moons: A Year of Eating in Shanghai》，這部作品除贏得2019年南•舍菲德獎（Nan Shepherd Prize），也讓她獲頒2018年女性詩人獎（The Women Poets’ Prize）。此外，妮娜還成立了苦瓜出版（Bitter Melon，https://bittermelon.weebly.com/），專出亞洲詩人的限量詩集小冊。

 

‘Small Bodies of Water is a remarkable book, at once fluid and crystalline in form, with its short sections tilting towards (flowing into) one another in pattern-making relation. Its language trembles on the brink of poetry; these sentences have surety to their rhythms, subtlety to their weightings. Beautifully, dreamily, intricately, it explores movement, migration and memory. Identity, here, is experienced as liquid, as fluent. Small Bodies of Water was the winner of the inaugural Nan Shepherd Prize, and it’s my belief that Shepherd would have loved this book – and would have wanted to walk and swim with Nina, talking of all that her book brings to the surface’ Robert Macfarlane



‘Nina is a distinctive new voice: attentive and tender. Her experience of belonging to many places is one that so many of us can relate to. This book is a beautiful personal journey through plants and sea creatures, food and language. It’s also a tribute to the elders and I particularly liked reading about Gong Gong and fish at the end – it brought it all together. It’s international but specific, delicate but not weak. A gorgeous read’ Amy Liptrot