Bound proofs are in for CALL ME ISHMAELLE
For the cover for Xiaolu Guo's Call Me Ishmaelle, a retelling of Herman Melville's Moby-Dick, Chatto & Windus have commissioned a wonderful whale linocut from Łukasz Łasisz which makes a brilliant front and back display.
Call Me Ishmaelle, to be published by Chatto & Windus on 20 March 2025, reimagines the epic battle between man and nature in Moby-Dick from a female perspective.
In 1843, Ishmaelle is born in a small village on the stormy Kent coast, where she grows up swimming with dolphins. After her parents and infant sister die, her brother, Joseph, leaves to find work as a sailor. Abandoned and desperate for a life at sea, Ishmaelle disguises herself as a cabin boy and travels to New York. As the American Civil War breaks out in 1861, Ishmaelle boards the Nimrod, a whaling ship led by the obsessive Captain Seneca, a Black free man of heroic stature who is haunted by a tragic past. Here, she finds protectors in Polynesian harpooner Kauri and Taoist monk Muzi, whose readings of the I Ching guide their quest. Through the bloody masculine violence of whaling, and the unveiling of her feminine identity, Ishmaelle realises there is a mysterious bond between herself and the mythical white whale, Moby Dick.
Xiaolu Guo has crafted a dramatically different, feminist narrative that stands alongside Melville’s original while offering a powerful exploration of nature, gender and human purpose. Xiaolu says of her novel,
“This is a bold new experiment for me, stepping out of my comfort zone. The novel is a homage to an American master, but with transgressive twists.”
Bound proofs are just in. Publicity for Call Me Ishmaelle is being handled by Jessica Spivey:
