Praise for CALL ME ISHMAELLE:

"Stylish . . . Guo both pays heed to the American classic and breaks out into something of her own . . . [she] has gender-flipped this intimidating text with bravura and style . . . This is a courageous journey: no aping of a classic, rather a vision of a young woman sailing out to discover not a whale but her own self."--Erica Wagner, Telegraph

"Guo's reinvention of Melville's text has significant political intent as well as playful artfulness . . . Guo, a transformative writer, seems ideally placed to explore the mythmaking story of Melville's 'grand hooded phantom' . . . Call Me Ishmaelle is presented in short, intense chapters that are interspersed with Seneca's dreamlike rantings and occasional phonetic whale sounds. Guo's unstoppable energy propels this old tale forward into new and exciting waters."--Catherine Taylor, Financial Times

"Told at fertile points of juncture between different cultural and historical identities . . . Guo gives renewed forms of life to Melville's immense novel . . . Ishmaelle has her own story to tell and a changing audience will want to listen."--Times Literary Supplement (UK)

"Full of energy . . . Call Me Ishmaelle deftly incorporates philosophical questions about our relationship with nature and gender-dysphoria into the plot, constantly tugging at the heartstrings."--Zuzanna Lachendro, New Statesman (UK)

"The story's jeopardy and heart-wrenching hardship mingle with a sense of glee as Guo challenges Melville's assumptions, as well as our own, by giving Ishmaelle a cosmopolitan cast of colleagues on deck. If you've not read the original, fear not - this rollicking escapade stands alone."--Anthony Cummins, Daily Mail (UK)

"A brilliantly written reordering of Moby-Dick, ambitious, brave, and strange, from the imagination of this natural-born storyteller. There's a cinematic, global sweep to its motion, and an unbridled energy and poetry to its dramatic words. The result is as animal and visceral and shape-shifting and subversive as the broad back of the mythic whale themselves."--Philip Hoare, author of Leviathan

"A glorious female-led retelling of a classic, combining seafaring adventure with beautifully immersive prose. Exploring gender identity, race and our relationship to the natural world, Xiaolu Guo reinvigorates Herman Melville's story while staying true to its heart."--Carmella Lowkis, author of Spitting Gold

"From the bones of Melville's Great White Whale, Xiaolu Guo has fashioned a novel as wonderful, captivating and sea-soaked, that's seems both timeless and very much of today."--Travis Elborough, author of Atlas of Forgotten Places

Praise for Xiaolu Guo:

"[Guo is] an astute and challenging innovator, slipping between word and image, documentary and fiction, as restlessly as between languages."--Guardian, on A Lover's Discourse

"Xiaolu Guo's literary voice remains a breath of the freshest air imaginable."--The Independent (UK), on A Lover's Discourse

"Vivid--and funny."--Wall Street Journal, on Nine Continents

"Guo writes in the audacious, restless and fragmented prose that has become her imprint: a feverish style that can be as merciless as the world she portrays . . . [A] penetrating writer."--New Statesman (UK), on Nine Continents

"When it comes to spinning light and shadow on the complexities of living, loving and language, Xiaolu Guo is one of the most valuable writers in the world."--Deborah Levy, on Radical