The Home Child

One of the outstanding books of this year… Although this is a historical tale its resonance is timeless * Sunday Times *
A story that is not only heartbreaking but also, essentially, true … [The Home Child] is a profound act of witness to a long injustice, and a beautifully crafted conjuring of a life lived as truly as possible * Guardian, Book of the Day *
Berry’s novel in verse is based on an aunt she never met… It’s vivid, compassionate and, a century after her forced migration, makes little Eliza Showell’s voice heard at last * Financial Times, Summer Reads of 2023 *
Liz Berry has given the world another ground-breaking collection of poems. These verses are sensitive and tender, yet the language is real and unflinching * Benjamin Zephaniah *
An extraordinary work of imagination … Poetic virtuosity is combined with novelistic story-telling as we follow the unfolding fate of Eliza Showell … An exquisite book * Hannah Lowe *
Only Liz Berry could write such raw and staggeringly beautiful poems * Fiona Benson *
‘Magnificent … She takes us on a heartbreaking journey, and she persuades us to examine our own past, whoever we are.’ * Ian McMillan *
One of the most anticipated second collections of the decade… Enchanting… Berry combines the historical and the personal, the local and international, weaving them into a story that has its own accumulating emotional force * Irish Times *
A triumph. A novel in verse, an elegy, a profound act of witness … Eliza is brought to such tangible and complex life I feel as though I’ve met her * Luke Kennard *
‘One of my favourite books of all time. Every collection by Liz Berry is a treasure, but this one struck even deeper. It has universal reach to the ongoing exploitation of earth’s poor. * Pascale Petit *

Liz Berry is an award-winning poet and author of the critically acclaimed collections Black Country (Chatto, 2014); The Republic of Motherhood (Chatto, 2018); The Dereliction (Hercules Editions, 2021) a collaboration with artist Tom Hicks; and most recently The Home Child (Chatto, 2023), a novel in verse. Liz’s work, described as “a sooty soaring hymn to her native West Midlands” (Guardian), celebrates the landscape, history and dialect of the region. Liz has received the Somerset Maugham Award, Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize and Forward Prizes. Her poem ‘Homing’, a love poem for the language of the Black Country, is part of the GCSE English syllabus. Liz is a patron of Writing West Midlands and lives in Birmingham with her family.

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