What is She Doing Here?

What Is She Doing Here? is a memoir of the five years the poet Kate Clanchy spent living closely with Antigona, a Kosovan refugee. Antigona becomes her project, her protégée, her cleaner, her nanny, and slowly, through hours of conversation and negotiations of difference, her friend.

Through the story of the women`s growing understanding is woven the dramatic tale of Antigona`s great escape - from Milosevic, from her forced, violent marriage, and from the most traditional pastoral society in Europe - and the growing toll of her losses, as she and her rebellious teenage daughters negotiate London. Antigona`s wit and vertiginous perspectives on contemporary life illuminate and transform the way the writer thinks, bringing many hard truths uncomfortably close to home.

`Kate Clanchy has written not just a heart-stopping story, but one that is essential for our times.` Anne Enright