Dreaming of Dead People

In the ‘middle of life’ – although this is only thirty-six – and with the unsparing eye of a portraitist, Lavinia reviews her frustrations and her solitariness, the grief and the rapture: these are her seeming companions in a pageant presided over, as it were, by the medieval masks of Owl, signifying winter, and Cuckoo, for erotic love. In attendance are dreams of rustic places and once-dear animals. But it is no ordinary procession, for her childhood comes last. The idiosyncratic Dreaming of Dead People was first published in 1979, yet remains as surprising as ever: it is frank, mordantly funny, true to itself and raw.

‘By turns shimmering and disquieting, Belben''s exceptional voice deserves a resurgence.’ Irenosen Okojie

‘If the world includes Rosalind Belben and her words it cannot be considered an altogether regrettable place to be.’ Harry Mathews

‘A beautiful work . . . it says a great deal about the world we live in . . . more life-like and more alive than most fiction.’ Michael Hamburger on Is Beauty Good