Heligoland

A friendless orphan turned middle-aged drifter finds a lasting refuge in Shena MacKay’s curiously eccentric and warm-hearted novel.

The Nautilus, a strange building shaped like the chambered shell of the same name, was built in South London in the early 1930s. Designed on Modernist and Utopian principles, it became a haven for a floating community of cosmopolitan refugees, intellectuals and artists. Now, at the end of the century, only two of the original inhabitants remain - Celeste Zylberstein, joint architect of the Nautilus, and Francis Campion, an elderly poet. But another guest is on her way…

"There aren't many novelists whose latest offering would make me abandon everything, but Shena Mackay is one."  -  Mail on Sunday

"She writes like an angel wielding a scalpel, dissecting her characters with sublime, sharp-edged prose."  -  The Guardian

Shena Mackay is the author of five collections of stories - Babies in Rhinestones, Dreams of Dead Women's Handbags, The Laughing Academy, The World's Smallest Unicorn and The Atmospheric Railway: New and Selected Stories. Her novels include Dunedin, The Orchard on Fire (which was shortlisted for the 1996 Booker Prize) and The Artist's Widow.

Shortlisted for the 2003 Women's Prize For Fiction