At a glamorous ceremony at the National Liberal Club, the Edward Stanford Travle Writing Awards announced the shortlists for travel writing fiction and non-fiction. Hummingbird by Tristan Hughes was shortlisted in the category 'Fiction, with a Sense of Place' among a strong pool of candidates.
Tristan Hughes was born in northern Ontario and brought up on the Welsh island of Ynys Mon. He is the author of three other novels, Eye Lake, Revenant, and Send My Cold Bones Home, as well as a collection of short stories, The Tower. He is a winner of the Rhys Davies Short Story Prize and is currently a senior lecturer in Creative Writing at Cardiff University.
Hummingbird tells the story of fifteen-year-old Zachary Tayler lives a lonely and isolated life with his father beside a lake in the northern Canadian wilderness . His only neighbours are a leech trapper, an eccentric millionaire, and an expert in snow. But then one summer the enigmatic and shape-shifting Eva Spiller arrives in search of the remains of her parents and together they embark on a strange and disconcerting journey of discovery. Nothing at Sitting Down Lake is quite as it seems. The forest hides ruins and mysteries; the past can never be fully understood. And as Zach and Eva make their way through this haunted landscape, they move ever closer towards an acceptance of what in the end is lost and what can truly be found.
In his fourth novel, award-winning author Tristan Hughes returns to the landscape of his youth in this vivid and poetic coming-of-age story about death, life, and the changes they bring. Set against the harsh, unforgiving beauty of the forests of northern Ontario, Hummingbird unravels a moving tale of loss, absence and redemption.
Hummingbird will be published in paperback in March 2018.
