Black Inked Pearl: A Girl's Quest - Hardcover

Review

"I read Black-Inked Pearl with delight and surprise. It is a long, entrancing tale, often touching on the threshold of poetry - a song enticing readers with echoes and riddles of love lost and remembered, love forever present - shaped in a language woven with ancient imagery and rhythms - a magnificent riddle conjured up by a magical storyteller." Itala Vivan University of Milan "A delightfully dreamlike, mystical tale of epic scope, spiritually and erotically charged, and rich in cultural and linguistic play, with hints of Gerard Manley Hopkins, Dante, James Joyce and poetry from the oral traditions of both Ireland and Africa. A fascinating volume." Mike Hanne Founder of the Comparative Literature programme at the University of Auckland Author of The Power of the Story: Fiction and Political Change "Immensely enjoyed. VERY interesting, takes you into another world. Not just a love story, a spiritual message." Reverend Jan Beer St Faith's, The Parish Church of Lee-on-the-Solent "A highly unusual story filled with literary and biblical illusions and new words." Joyce Irene Whalley Author of The Art of Calligraphy and A History of Children's Book Illustration Previously Keeper, Victoria and Albert Museum, London

About the Author

Ruth Finnegan, OBE, is a renowned scholar and celebrated writer who is Emeritus Professor, the Open University, a Fellow of the British Academy, and an Honorary Fellow of Somerville College Oxford.

She was born and reared in Ulster and sent to a Quaker school filled with biblical texts and music, which are reflected in the novel. First-class Oxford degrees in classics and philosophy were followed by African fieldwork, which Ruth describes as “totally inspiring for my life and work.”

She returned to Oxford for a doctorate in anthropology before university teaching in Africa and briefly in Fiji, and finally the Open University in the U.K. She has three wonderful daughters and five grandchildren, and she lives with her husband and two cairn terriers in Buckinghamshire.