NOWHERE TO LAND

Nowhere to Land is a debut literary novel about identity, memory, and migration. Heloísa Rocha, a Brazilian woman who has lived in Sydney for nine years and become known by the Australianised name "Lisa", begins to experience small but persistent lapses of memory. Her search for a medical explanation slowly gives way to a quieter and more difficult recognition: that the cost of years lived in cultural and personal self-erasure has caught up with her. Set across the western suburbs of Sydney and the city of São Paulo, the novel follows Heloísa through medical consultations, an encounter with another older Brazilian woman, a return to her ailing father in Brazil, and her gradual return to herself. Written in spare, observational prose, the novel addresses migration, midlife, cross-cultural marriage, and the work of becoming visible to oneself.