Look At You

This powerful novel in stories follows its young narrator, growing up in a divided family. Shifting between Trinidad, England, and Ireland, she must learn to make sense of herself, and take her place in a world full of contradictions, cruelty and temptation. Look At You grabs the attention elegantly, with sharp dialogue, acuteness of observation, and the joy of meeting complex characters. The frank and engaging narrator, recognising the independent otherness of the people she writes about, has an alert eye for moments of epiphany, absurdity, sadness and comedy.
'Amanda Smyth writes like a descendant of Jean Rhys...a born novelist' ALI SMITH
'Smyth's writing is as lushly beautiful as the landscape she describes' THE TIMES
'Like Alice Walker, Smyth vividly and empathetically re-creates gender and racial tensions' ELLE MAGAZINE
'Hypnotic and heartbreaking... this may be Amanda Smyth's best book yet.' PAUL MURRAY

Amanda Smyth is Irish-Trinidadian and was born in Ireland. She is the author of Black Rock (2009), A Kind of Eden (2013) and Fortune (2020). She has won the Prix du Premier Roman prize, was nominated for an NAACP award, shortlisted for the McKitterick Prize and the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction, and selected as an Oprah Winfrey Summer Read. Amanda teaches creative writing at Arvon, Skyros in Greece, and at Coventry University. She lives in Leamington Spa with her family.