{"title":"Tessa McWatt","description":"\u003cp\u003eWelcome to the captivating world of \u003cem\u003eTessa McWatt\u003c\/em\u003e, an acclaimed author whose diverse body of work delves into the intricacies of identity, family, and belonging. With a unique voice and insightful perspective, McWatt's books offer readers a profound exploration of life's complexities.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eIn her thought-provoking memoir \u003cem\u003eShame On Me\u003c\/em\u003e, Tessa McWatt examines the intersections of race, ethnicity, and identity, providing an intimate reflection on how these aspects shape our experiences and perceptions. Her candid narrative invites readers to question societal conventions and consider their roles within these systems.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eSwitching to fiction, \u003cem\u003eThe Snag\u003c\/em\u003e offers a riveting portrayal of family dynamics and the delicate threads that bind us together. This engrossing novel observes the nuances of relationships, capturing the emotional intricacies of familial bonds with touching realism.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eAnother remarkable addition to McWatt's oeuvre is \u003cem\u003eThe Snow Line\u003c\/em\u003e, which takes readers on an evocative journey through diverse landscapes and human connections. Via beautifully crafted prose, McWatt transports her audience, delving deep into themes of love, loss, and redemption.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eWhether you're seeking a deeply personal narrative or a rich fictional escape, Tessa McWatt's collection promises to engage and enlighten. Dive into her works to experience storytelling that is both educational and profoundly moving.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"shame-on-me-by-tessa-mcwatt-9781925849011","title":"Shame On Me","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eShame On Me\u003c\/em\u003e was shortlisted for the 2020 OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e'What are you?' This question, often posed by white people to individuals of colour, is never as simple as it seems. Tessa McWatt, with a rich heritage encompassing English, Scottish, British, Caribbean, Portuguese, Indian, Amerindian, French, African, Chinese, and Canadian roots, understands this complexity first-hand. Her family history, like many others, is woven with myth and tales from grandparents and parents, viewed through lenses of desire, aspiration, loss, and shame.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eIn \u003cem\u003eShame On Me\u003c\/em\u003e, McWatt unravels the threads of her ancestry, then weaves them together anew, adding strands from literature and history to reinforce her reconstructed narrative. She examines her own body part by part, building a powerful and subtle critique of the current race discussion. This stunningly composed exploration delves deep into our true identities.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e'Beautifully written, profoundly moving, and deeply reflective.' - 2020 OCM Bocas Prize jury citation\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e'Beautifully written and courageously told.' - 2020 Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Prize for Nonfiction jury citation\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e'This remarkable meditation on beautiful, human bodies formed by the violence of slavery and by colonial shame resists categorisation, even as it shows up the ways in which categories of race and identity are no more than empty methods of social control. Reading this book, I felt a profound sense of relief that someone as wise as Tessa McWatt had the compassion and courage to write it. Though she doesn't spare us, her ancestors, or herself, as she travels from British Guiana to China, India, and Scotland, we must go with her and realise the power of recovering female lineage, and realise that there is no centre, except the one we ourselves can make with all the various stories we contain. It is a deeply moving, urgent, and important book.' - Preti Taneja, author of \u003cem\u003eWe That Are Young\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Penguin Random House NZ","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46378669867244,"sku":"9781925849011","price":34.0,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/18815443482873.jpg?v=1744835988"},{"product_id":"the-snow-line-by-tessa-mcwatt-9781925849028","title":"The Snow Line","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOld and young. White and brown. Male and female. British. Indian. Other.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eFour strangers arrive in India for a wedding. Together, they climb a mountain - but will they see the same things from the top?\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eLondoner Reema, who left India before she could speak, is searching for a sign that will help her make a life-changing decision. In pensioner Jackson's suitcase is something he must let go of, but is he strong enough?\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eTogether with two unlikely companions, they take a road trip up a mountain deep in the Himalayas, heading for the snow line - the place where the ice begins.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eBut even standing in the same place, surrounded by magnificent views, they see things differently. As they ascend higher and higher, they must learn to cross the lines that divide them.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eVivid, rich, and melodic ... Layers of images, memories, and facts ask questions of connections, accountability, and desire - political and personal - and how we meet the complexities that make us. A beautiful read!\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\n- Olumide Popoola, author of \u003cem\u003eWhen We Speak of Nothing\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eTessa McWatt is one of our greatest living writers. \u003cspan style=\"font-style:italic;\"\u003eThe Snow Line\u003c\/span\u003e, her new novel, is a profound meditation on love, ageing, and what it is to be a woman of mixed racial identity and culture. Profoundly moving and epic in its scope, this book provides us with wisdom and reckoning on today's world, one that is ecologically fragile and only just coping with a pandemic. Like all mature writers, McWatt's range of reference is vast and her understanding of humanity plunges us into depths we all long to inhabit. She writes her characters with such intimacy we are thunderstruck by the book's final pages. I closed this book and shed tears.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\n- Monique Roffey, author of \u003cem\u003eThe Mermaid of Black Conch\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eA profound meditation on the music that strangers in a place can make together, and on how the music of a strange place can get inside us, and change us forever. I loved the journey the book takes us on, revisiting some of the geographies readers will remember from \u003cspan style=\"font-style:italic;\"\u003eThe Far Pavilions\u003c\/span\u003e, while the echoes of \u003cspan style=\"font-style:italic;\"\u003eKing Lear\u003c\/span\u003e provide an undercurrent of nature's aloofness, its potential for violence.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\n- Preti Taneja, author of \u003cem\u003eWe That Are Young\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Penguin Random House NZ","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46672389243116,"sku":"9781925849028","price":34.0,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/18815613482873.jpg?v=1752845239"},{"product_id":"the-snag-by-tessa-mcwatt-9781915590985","title":"The Snag","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eEvery day, we hear about and experience griefs, large and small, in our families, friendships, communities, and worldwide. The grief of a loved one passing. The grief of a way of life ceasing to exist. The grief of global pandemic, war, climate collapse.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eIn \u003cem\u003eThe Snag\u003c\/em\u003e, the acclaimed author of \u003cem\u003eShame on Me\u003c\/em\u003e, Tessa McWatt, takes on personal and collective grief, and climate change, in her much-anticipated second nonfiction book.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eAs her mother's dementia advances and it becomes apparent that she can no longer live independently, Tessa considers griefs personal and political, and finds solace in trees. She asks: How do we grieve? And: What can we learn from nature and those whose communities are rooted in nature about how to grieve - and how to live?\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eFrom the newest seedling, to the oldest snag in the forest, there is meaning to be found in every stage of a tree's life, all of which contribute to a thriving forest community; it is in this metaphor that Tessa begins to find answers to her questions about how to live (for each other), how to grieve (radically), and how to die (with love and connection).\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eThe Snag\u003c\/em\u003e is an essential book about living and dancing and singing and praying, even in the face of unimaginable sadness, and in this way, growing together and supporting one another, like the trees in the forest.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003e\"In The Snag, Tessa McWatt dwells in powerful contradictions as she brings us along through her complex journeys of grief and joy across continents, offering multilayered and much-needed insight into connection and belonging beyond ourselves. Making the global intimate and the familial expansive, this book is a poignant lament for what we are losing and a call to care for what we have not yet lost.\" - Kate Neville, author of Going to Seed\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003e\"An extraordinary book - both a love song to the planet and reminder of how precious it is to be alive. Wise, bold, and deeply affecting, \u003cem\u003eThe Snag\u003c\/em\u003e is an urgent plea for change.\" - Stephanie Bishop, author of The Anniversary\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003e\"\u003cem\u003eThe Snag\u003c\/em\u003e is a radical ecosystem of a book. Love and loss, death and renewal, seeds and snags; the intimately personal and the globally political are all delicately balanced here. Tessa McWatt holds us unflinchingly close in this singular and universal story of a mother's decline, and demands that we face up to the grief of all that we stand to lose in our collective planetary home's demise.\" - Marchelle Farrell, author of Uprooting\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Penguin Random House NZ","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47083026776300,"sku":"9781915590985","price":50.0,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/33524ec3cb0946e7f4e380f848831a11.jpg?v=1765311422"}],"url":"https:\/\/bookhero.pro\/collections\/tessa-mcwatt.oembed","provider":"Book Hero","version":"1.0","type":"link"}