Yvonne
Ali Shaw was born in 1982 and grew up in a small town in Dorset, although he currently lives and works in Oxford.
Since graduating, he has worked as a Bookseller and at Oxford’s Bodleian Library.
‘The Girl With Glass Feet’ was published in 2009, as Ali’s debut novel. He is currently working on his second book.
‘The Girl With Glass Feet’ has been described as a ‘dazzlingly imaginative and gripping first novel, a love story to treasure’
Ali has just been announced as the winner of 2010 Desmond Elliott Prize and it’s supporting £10,000 prize money.
Synopsis – ‘Girl With Glass Feet’
Strange things are happening on the remote and snowbound archipelago of St Hauda’s Land. Unusual winged creatures flit around icy bogland; albino animals hide themselves in the snow-glazed woods; jellyfish glow in the ocean’s depths… and Ida Maclaird is slowly turning into glass.
A mysterious and frightening metamorphosis has befallen Ida – she is slowly turning into glass, from the feet up. She returns to St Hauda’s Land, where she believes the glass first took hold, in the vain hope of finding the one man who might just be able to cure her…
Midas Crook is a young loner, who has lived on the islands his entire life. When he meets Ida, something about her sad, defiant spirit pierces his emotional defences. As Midas helps Ida come to terms with her affliction, she gradually unpicks the knots of his heart, and they begin to fall in love…
What they need most is time – and time is slipping away fast. Will they find a way to stave off the spread of the glass?
