My Hummingbird Father

Pascale Petit was born in Paris, grew up in France and Wales and lives in Cornwall. She is of French, Welsh and Indian heritage. Her eighth collection, Tiger Girl, from Bloodaxe in 2020, was shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best Collection, and for Wales Book of the Year. A poem from the book won the Keats-Shelley Poetry Prize. Her seventh poetry collection Mama Amazonica, published by Bloodaxe in 2017, won the inaugural Laurel Prize in 2020, won the RSL Ondaatje Prize in 2018, was shortlisted for the Roehampton Poetry Prize, and was a Poetry Book Society Choice.

Written in four parts and short chapters, My Hummingbird Father disentangles the relationship between art and abuse, and is shot through with epistolary elements and diary-like entries. Dominique is determined to “paint what hurts until it’s better. She can change the past with art. What would she do without art?” The novel is a redemption song and an ode to the lost innocence of childhood. Petit’s writing is as vivid as Dominique’s brushstrokes: here, there’s a forest full of fluttering, buzzing, rustling; there, Paris’s rues and boulevards, gargoyles and church bells. The author peels back layers and layers, only to reveal more secrets, losses, traumas.