Lucia

Winner of the 2019 Republic of Consciousness Prize

Alex Pheby's extraordinary novel takes us inside the darkness of Lucia Joyce - gifted dancer, lover of Samuel Beckett, daughter of James - who spent her last thirty years in an asylum. Since her death her voice has been silenced, her correspondence burned and her story shrouded in mystery. In sharp, cutting shards of narrative this novel evokes the things that may have been done to Lucia, for her and against her. Yet while it tells these stories in vivid and heart-breaking detail, it also questions what it means to recreate a life.