Shorelines Memory, migration and the selves we become
- 13 Aug 2026
- 9781837262052
- £18.99
- 256 pp
- 141×220mm
- 13 Aug 2026
- 9781837262076
- £15.19
- 256 pp
In a few words
Thrumming with poetic vitality and questions about the legacies of migration, Shorelines is the prize-winning non-fiction debut by Alycia Pirmohamed
In a few words
Thrumming with poetic vitality and questions about the legacies of migration, Shorelines is the winner of the Nan Shepherd Prize for nature writing and the non-fiction debut by Alycia Pirmohamed
A truly original take on migration, family and faith
Noreen Masud, Author Of A Flat Place
Shorelines is distinctly a prose work written by a poet; a text fascinated by the malleability of time and language, and the concrete possibilities of the page
A truly original take on migration, family and faith
Noreen Masud, Author Of A Flat Place
Shorelines is distinctly a prose work written by a poet; a text fascinated by the malleability of time and language, and the concrete possibilities of the page
More about
the book
WINNER OF THE NAN SHEPHERD PRIZE
A BOOKSELLER SPOTLIGHT PICK
WINNER OF THE LIST’S ‘BEST RISING SCOTTISH AUTHOR’AT EDINBURGH INTERNATIONAL BOOK FESTIVAL
‘A truly original take on migration, family and faith’ NOREEN MASUD
As a young Muslim woman, Alycia Pirmohamed grew up with her body as racialised and her faith as seemingly dangerous. Her affinity to the natural world – the mountains, elk and pines of her childhood – conflicted with feelings that she was unwelcome in these landscapes. By contrast, the stories of her parents’ homeland – the monsoon winds, red clay roads and abundant korosho trees – felt painfully distant.
Across interrelated pieces that travel from Midwestern Canada to East Africa, the Pacific Northwest to the British Isles, the award-winning poet traces the legacies of migration and memory on her life, examining the idea of homeland and the mythmaking it demands. She creatively resists the expectations of nature writing and memoir, at times choosing to withhold as much as she reveals.
Shorelines moves from lavender skies to lighthouses, from surefooted ideas to liminal spaces. It asks what it means to carry hidden histories across borders and generations – and how losing family can mean losing the place they are from too. Above all, it explores how place and identity intertwine, and how our choices, our actions and the ways we build community shape us into who we become.
More about
the book
WINNER OF THE NAN SHEPHERD PRIZE
A BOOKSELLER SPOTLIGHT PICK
WINNER OF THE LIST’S ‘BEST RISING SCOTTISH AUTHOR’AT EDINBURGH INTERNATIONAL BOOK FESTIVAL
‘A truly original take on migration, family and faith’ NOREEN MASUD
As a young Muslim woman, Alycia Pirmohamed grew up with her body as racialised and her faith as seemingly dangerous. Her affinity to the natural world – the mountains, elk and pines of her childhood – conflicted with feelings that she was unwelcome in these landscapes. By contrast, the stories of her parents’ homeland – the monsoon winds, red clay roads and abundant korosho trees – felt painfully distant.
Across interrelated pieces that travel from Midwestern Canada to East Africa, the Pacific Northwest to the British Isles, the award-winning poet traces the legacies of migration and memory on her life, examining the idea of homeland and the mythmaking it demands. She creatively resists the expectations of nature writing and memoir, at times choosing to withhold as much as she reveals.
Shorelines moves from lavender skies to lighthouses, from surefooted ideas to liminal spaces. It asks what it means to carry hidden histories across borders and generations – and how losing family can mean losing the place they are from too. Above all, it explores how place and identity intertwine, and how our choices, our actions and the ways we build community shape us into who we become.
An experimental approach to mapping a life on the page . . . Shorelines refuses fixed boundaries, offering instead a more realistic and interesting multiplicity of selves, homes, histories and truths
A book that earns its silences. Pirmohamed writes about belonging - in landscapes, in families, across borders - with a poet's precision and genuine emotional courage. Shorelines is formally original and deeply true
Freya Bromley, Author Of The Tidal Year
Thought-provoking
Shorelines fell over me like a wave pools around a body in water. Tender and quietly incisive, Pirmohamed’s poetic prose makes visible sensations, meanings and forgotten inheritances in the aches and unexpected joys of migration. Here is nature writing alive in its attention to movement, to loss and to the ethics that shape our encounters with the world and one another
Jessica J. Lee, Author Of Turning And Dispersals
An experimental approach to mapping a life on the page . . . Shorelines refuses fixed boundaries, offering instead a more realistic and interesting multiplicity of selves, homes, histories and truths
A book that earns its silences. Pirmohamed writes about belonging - in landscapes, in families, across borders - with a poet's precision and genuine emotional courage. Shorelines is formally original and deeply true
Freya Bromley, Author Of The Tidal Year
Thought-provoking
Shorelines fell over me like a wave pools around a body in water. Tender and quietly incisive, Pirmohamed’s poetic prose makes visible sensations, meanings and forgotten inheritances in the aches and unexpected joys of migration. Here is nature writing alive in its attention to movement, to loss and to the ethics that shape our encounters with the world and one another
Jessica J. Lee, Author Of Turning And Dispersals
Alycia Pirmohamed
View profileAlycia Pirmohamed is a Canadian-born writer based in Scotland. Shorelines is her first work of non-fiction, for which she won the Nan Shepherd Prize. Her debut poetry collection, Another Way to Split Water, was shortlisted for Scottish Poetry Book of the Year by the Saltire Society. She is the recipient of several other awards, including a Pushcart Prize, the 2019 CBC Poetry Prize and the 2020 Edwin Morgan Poetry Award. Alycia is the co-founder of the Scottish BPOC Writers Network, and she currently teaches on the Creative Writing master’s programme at the University of Cambridge.
alycia-pirmohamed.com | @a_pirmohamed | @alyciap_
Alycia Pirmohamed
View profileAlycia Pirmohamed is a Canadian-born writer based in Scotland. Shorelines is her first work of non-fiction, for which she won the Nan Shepherd Prize. Her debut poetry collection, Another Way to Split Water, was shortlisted for Scottish Poetry Book of the Year by the Saltire Society. She is the recipient of several other awards, including a Pushcart Prize, the 2019 CBC Poetry Prize and the 2020 Edwin Morgan Poetry Award. Alycia is the co-founder of the Scottish BPOC Writers Network, and she currently teaches on the Creative Writing master’s programme at the University of Cambridge.
alycia-pirmohamed.com | @a_pirmohamed | @alyciap_
