Swim Until You Can’t See Land

About the Book: 

Swim Until You Can’t See Land charts the relationship between two women born sixty years apart, whose chance encounter marks a watershed for the younger woman.

In her early twenties, Hannah Wright is forced to give up a promising career as a professional swimmer, and is adjusting with difficulty to her narrowed horizons. She is in danger of becoming embittered, haunted by a lost future.

Mariele may now be frail and old, but as her exploits during WW2 unfold, she is revealed as a woman of extraordinary spirit, unbroken by capture and interrogation as an agent in occupied France. Hannah’s delight in the medium of water and the rhythms of swimming are set in dramatic counterpoint to Mariele’s of torture by water, an ordeal that puts her in touch with her core strength – something Hannah starts to discover in herself.

About the Author:

CATRIONA CHILD was born in 1980 in Dundee. Hailed as ‘one of the brightest prospects among a thriving breed of fresh Scottish writing talent,’ she has a degree in English from the University of Aberdeen and an MA with Distinction in Creative Writing from Lancaster University. Her debut novel, Trackman, was published in 2012 and was described by The Herald as ‘having all the makings of a cult hit.’ Her second novel, Swim Until You Can’t See Land, was published in 2014. She has been published in The Sunday Herald, the 404 Ink Earth literary magazine, Northwords Now and in the Scottish Book Trust Family Legends anthology. She lives just outside Edinburgh with her husband Allan and their two children, Corrie and Alasdair.