White Turtle
An anomalous kiss. A white turtle ferrying the dreams of the dead. A working siesta in a five-star hotel. A woman’s twelve-metre hair trawling corpses from a river. Or a queue of longings in Darlinghurst. These enigmatic tales are stories of chance and hope. Alternately mythic, wistful or quirky, Merlinda Bobis’ tales resonate with an original and confident storytelling voice.
1999 | ISBN 9781875559893 | Paperback | 200 x 130 mm | 189 pp
Awards
2000 Co-winner, Steele Rudd Award
2000 Winner, National Book Award (fiction), Manila Critics Circle
2001 Judges' Choice Award, Bumbershoot Book Fair, USA
Reviews
'Merlinda Bobis is a superb storyteller. She can take you into the precious intimacies of her characters with such ease that you are left breathless by the rhythm, the motion, the prevailing currents with which you've entered the mood of the tale.'
–Dee Dicen Hunt, KASAMA
'An evocative glimpse into a little known culture...’
–Ginu Kamani, author of Junglee Girl
Bobis for the most part displays admirable control and indeed a sublime cleverness ...
–The Philippine Star
The power to amaze is what happens when a writer collapses parallel universes of the real and the fantastic, and Bobis does so convincingly.
–Banana Café E-zine
Cultures meet, mix, and sometimes collide on the tongue — in a taste, a word, a kiss — … Her poetic background shines through in her short stories with piercing metaphors.
–Asianweek.com
To read Merlinda Bobis’ collection of short fiction is to sample as riot of tastes indivisible from that other joy of the tongue — language … It would be hard to find a writer with more love and reverence for all the pleasures the tongue is capable of enduring.
–Ms. Magazine
… you will want to read these stories as you fall asleep and savor them one each night, to extend the pleasure of discovering that politically conscious writing can be stylistically innovative and challenging, as well as simply beautiful.
–Pacific Reader
‘A versatile collection that brings together the creations of wide-ranging observation, a candid mind, a sympathetic heart, and a delicious sense of humour. New angles on the familiar startle and refresh the reader at every turn. A writer to watch and applaud.’
–Yasmin Gooneratne
'Merlinda Bobis presents a world of large emotions, wild dreams and vivid sensuality. A valuable contribution to postcolonial and multicultural literature.’
–Bruce Bennett
'Merlinda Bobis writes like an angel. Her characters whisper to you long after they’ve told their bittersweet tales.’
–Arlene J Chai