Arrival

Overview

A work of literary fiction exploring domestic abuse, interlaced with folk tales, for readers of Carmen Maria Machado and Meera Kandasamy

Arrival is an exploration of the ripple effects of domestic abuse. The story follows a young woman fleeing her home country and trying to rebuild her life, after she has suffered violence at the hands of an alcoholic father.

The novel bends form to accommodate the narrator’s scattered mind and her attempt to assemble a version of herself through fragments and stitches of memories, borrowed conversations and minutiae that linger and haunt.

Infused with love and determination and interwoven with folk tales and rituals, Arrival depicts the ways in which we are resilient, capable of carving our own paths and reimagining our lives.

Reviews

"Revealed through an array of styles and literary devices—stories, folktales, conversations, fragments, and even recipes—Deleva’s narrator is deeply compelling.  . . . Far from being an obstruction, this often anarchically composite form is somehow deeply engaging. . . . The novel presents this quest for healing as only one facet of a life; shards of pain poke out of the story, bright and sharp, but in amongst them are other fragments too; beauty, love and tenderness." —Lunate

‘A powerful tale about love, violence, motherhood, escape, and arrival on many levels, written with sensuality and poetic force.’ —Naja Marie-Aidt, author of Baboon, Rock, Paper, Scissors and Carl’s Book

‘From the opening of Arrival, Nataliya Deleva demonstrates a remarkable talent for conjuring place and moment. It sits the reader beside her unnamed narrator. Whether in the Bulgarian valleys of her childhood or inhabiting the trauma-induced void that’s replaced any semblance of home, we are beside her.’ —Harriet Mercer, author of Gargoyles

‘Arrival is a book made up of fragments – fragments of love, motherhood, abuse and marriage – which form an intriguing and moving kaleidoscope narrative. A jagged, beautifully written novel which explores the shattering impact of abuse and how the past shapes the present.’ —Sam Mills, author of The Fragments of My Father

‘In her powerful second novel Nataliya Deleva explores the legacy of a childhood scarred by domestic abuse: how the confusion of love with pain creeps into every fragmented shard of adult life, contaminating relationships and complicating motherhood. Through the mythical Samodivi she conjures an enduring archetype of the wild rebel female who has escape, who rejects the ways men control women. There is beauty and tenderness in the creation of her unnamed narrator’s new life, in the poetry of survival and renewal, and in the breaking of patterns for her daughter – freedom from shattering cruelty.’ —Venetia Welby, author of Dreamtime

"A strong debut." —Kirkus Reviews on Four Minutes

Author Biography