Stubborn Archivist

Reviews / Votes

With an exceptionally light touch, the debut novelist Yara Rodrigues Fowler uses dialogue to sketch out a young woman's awkward attempts to articulate and reconcile different aspects of who she is . . . The novel ends with a tiny movement, a moment of discovery all the more tantalizing for remaining largely unexpressed, and this is undoubtedly the novel's strength: its ability to show something momentous - about cultural identity, sexual violence, racial prejudice - without seeming to say anything at all - TLS

Strikingly original - Sunday Express

Rodrigues Fowler's debut novel is a timely exploration of what it means to understand past and present and the delicate balance of embracing two cultures simultaneously...Original and thought-provoking, this is a book that's well worth your time - Stylist

Yara Rodrigues Fowler has written something extraordinary, playing with structure to create an insightful, lyrical and visceral novel - Emerald Street

Compelling . . . it should delight anyone looking for a thoughtful, witty successor to Sally Rooney - Observer

Stubborn Archivist is an intimate and wonderfully resourceful exploration of origins. In its quest to uncover what a person is made of it digs deeply into the living body, as well as tracing back through its tangled roots. Visceral and elegant, circumspect and vivid, Yara Rodrigues Fowler has a distinctly unhampered way of telling a story; I liked Stubborn Archivist very very much.

I read Stubborn Archivist in a ravenous gulp. It's stunning: so articulate about what it means to live between two languages and countries, tenderly unravelling the knots of unbelonging.

My goodness. Yara Rodrigues-Fowler has conjured a work of rare power, startlingly original form, and devastating beauty. This novel is a triumph