By: Elaine Neil Orr
ISBN: 978-1958888339
Blair Publishing, 2025
2025 Sarton Finalist: Historical Fiction
An indelible portrait of a young female artist, torn between two men and two cultures, struggling to find her passion and her purpose.
It’s 1963 and Isabel Hammond is an expat who has accompanied her agriculture aid worker husband to Nigeria, where she is hoping to find inspiration for her art and for her life. Then she meets charismatic local singer Bobby Tunde, and they share a night of passion that could upend everything. Seeking solace and distraction, she returns to her painting and her home in a rural town where she plants a lemon tree and unearths an ancient statue buried in her garden. She knows that the dancing female figure is not hers to keep, yet she is reluctant to give it up, and soon, she notices other changes that make her wonder what the dancing woman might portend.
Against the backdrop of political unrest in Nigeria, Isabel’s personal situation also becomes precarious. She finds herself in the center of a tide of suspicion, leaving her torn between the confines of her domestic life and the desire to immerse herself in her art and in the culture that surrounds her. The expat society, the ancient Nigerian culture, her beautiful family, and even the statue hidden in a back room—each trouble and beguile Isabel. Amid all of this, can she finally become who she wants to be?
About the Author
Elaine Neil Orr was born in Nigeria; the American South is her second home. She writes richly about the natural world, complex human relationships, and journey to enlightenment. She has received awards from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the North Carolina Arts Council, and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. In 2016, she was Kathryn Stripling Byer writer-in-residence at Wesleyan College in Macon, Georgia. In addition to her books, her short stories and memoirs have appeared in The Missouri Review, Image, Shenandoah, and Blackbird, among other places. She is on the faculty of English at North Carolina State University and teaches in the Naslund-Mann School of Writing.
She is the author of six books, including A Different Sun and Swimming Between Worlds. In a starred review, Library Journal said of her first novel, A Different Sun, “This extraordinary novel shines with light and depth.” Charles Frazier says her new novel, Dancing Woman, is “ultimately a story of longing—for a sense of self, community, redemption, and healing—and a profound exploration of the transformative power of art.”
To learn more about Elaine Neil Orr and her work, please see www.elaineneilorr.com
