The Fish Ladder: A Journey Upstream

By Katharine Norbury

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'A beautiful, strange, intoxicating and utterly unique story' - Philip Pullman

'The memoirist's challenge ... is simple: “Give a true account of yourself”. The Fish Ladder accomplishes this brilliantly' - Horatio Clare, Sunday Telegraph

'A beguiling amalgam of personal anecdote, travelogue and family history … Norbury attains a wonder-struck prose poetry' - Independent
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SHORTLISTED FOR THE WAINWRIGHT PRIZE
LONGLISTED FOR THE GUARDIAN FIRST BOOK AWARD
TELEGRAPH BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR

Katharine Norbury was abandoned as a baby in a Liverpool convent. Raised by loving adoptive parents, she grew into a wanderer, drawn by the beauty of the British countryside. One summer, following the miscarriage of a much-longed-for child, Katharine and her nine-year-old daughter Evie decide to follow a river from the sea to its source. But a chance circumstance forces Katharine to the door of the woman who gave her up all those years ago.

Combining travelogue, memoir, exquisite nature writing, fragments of poetry and tales from Celtic mythology, The Fish Ladder is a captivating and life-affirming story about motherhood, marriage, family, and self-discovery, illuminated by the extraordinary majesty of the natural world.
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• Language: English
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
• Release date: Feb 12, 2015
• ISBN: 9781408859254

Katharine Norbury

Katharine Norbury trained as a film editor with the BBC and has worked extensively in film and television drama. She is a graduate of the Creative Writing MA programme at UEA. The Fish Ladder is her first book. It was longlisted for the Guardian First Book Award and was a Telegraph Best Book of the Year 2015. Katharine was chosen as the Observer's Rising Star in non-fiction for 2015. She lives in London with her family. @kjnorbury