At once a travel book, autobiographical novel and free-style historical survey, "News of the Swimmer Reaches the Shore" begins with its narrator suspended in the salty, buoyant waters of the Mediterranean. Not only is the book a paean to the south of France, it is a history of things that explode under water, taking the reader by way of the trenches of World War One and the Rainbow Warrior bombing to the writer's experiences of diving off Menton. Adrift on an ocean of art history, literature and music, the book introduces a cast of underwater characters including Jacques Cousteau, Dominique Prieur, Henri Matisse and the naked river-swimming Mother Aubert, a 19th century nun who presents something of a role-model for the narrator as he negotiates various streams of thought.
- ISBN10 1857548531
- ISBN13 9781857548532
- Publish Date 30 March 2007 (first published 2 February 2007)
- Publish Status Transferred
- Out of Print 19 August 2015
- Publish Country GB
- Publisher Carcanet Press Ltd
- Imprint Lives and Letters
- Format Paperback
- Language English