Sliced Tongue and Pearl Cufflinks explores fractured connections of self, family and home, laying bare the devastating impact of traumatisation against language and identity in its unflinching quest to communicate the brittle reality of everyday life at the edge. The destructive forces of suicide, insomnia, self-harm and abuse are given order through the creative drive of poetic forms. At the heart of this collection are a daughter's fraught relationships with her half Japanese father, who survived three years as a POW in Czechoslovakia, and a mother who grew up in National Socialist Germany, and whose unspoken traumas haunted the fabric of family life.

A pamphlet was shortlisted for the Venture Award 2015 and, the following year, Kittie was awarded a Literature Wales Mentoring Bursary to develop this into her first full collection.

About the Author
Kittie Belltree was born in south London in the 1960's. She moved to Wales aged 18 to study Law and went on to train as a journalist at The London School of Printing. Kittie left London with two carrier bags and, despite all efforts to the contrary, for the next twenty years she lived an unconventional life, working and travelling in South America and North Africa and support- ing herself in a range of jobs from life model to mystery shopper. She continued to write throughout this period, eventually returning to education and gaining an MA in Creative Writing with Distinction from Aberystwyth University. Kittie works as a Specialist Tutor for students with neurodiversities and learning differences at Aberystwyth University where she is also completing a part-time PhD. Off campus she teaches creative writing in the community where she has worked with home-educated teenagers and people with dementia.


Book Information
ISBN 9781912681143
Author Kittie Belltree
Format Paperback
Page Count 80
Imprint Parthian Books
Publisher Parthian Books