Awakening

“Davies writes with an intensity which is simultaneously disturbing and exhilarating; her prose has a marvellous lyricism.” —Times Literary Supplement

“One of our most consistent and undervalued writers whose unsentimental, quietly revelatory novels have [continually] cropped up on the Booker and Orange shortlists.” —Guardian

“[Awakening] is charged with sensitivity to the otherness of the past […] [Davies’ ] social comedy breathes life into an oppressive world. […] Awakening burns with anger against the abuses of the past, while recognising that the present has no right to condescend.” –Helen Dunmore, The Guardian

“Davies weaves this intricate web of faltering, painful relationships with great skill and writes very powerfully and movingly about the subtle half-tones and tentativeness of love, of childbirth, of loss as well as the horribly intrusive shock of male Victorian medical practice towards women.” –Nicholas Murray, The Independent

“You leave these pages feeling more fully conscious of yourself and the world around you than you did when you began them. What more can you ask for from a book?” –John Lavin, Wales Arts Review

“George Eliot would be impressed.” –Sally Zigmond, historicalnovelsociety.org

Stevie Davies has won numerous awards for her fiction, and has been long-listed for the Booker and Orange Prizes. Several of her books have been adapted into radio and screenplays. Stevie lives in her home-town of Swansea, where she is Professor of Creative Writing at Swansea University. She is a passionate sea-swimmer, cyclist and walker on the Gower.