Lucid Dreams

De: Daphne Palasi Andreades

A surreal and intimate novel about a disillusioned artist who, plagued by mysterious visions, must navigate a series of personal and existential crises that upend their way of life, by the award-winning author of Brown Girls.

Fresh off the success of their first novel, a writer – intense, ambitious, and increasingly embittered by the purpose of art – struggles with feelings of despair. Despite achieving their childhood dream, they find themself dissatisfied and despondent in a post-pandemic world that feels violent and unstable.

Amidst this turmoil, and a looming deadline for their second book, the writer tries and fails to create. Instead, they begin to experience strange hallucinatory visions. Enigmatic letters and sketches appear, written in handwriting that isn’t their own, followed by sightings of a mysterious figure, which blur the line between the narrator’s fiction and lived reality.

These challenges – psychological, artistic, spiritual – and the secrets the writer harbours, alienate them from their loved ones, their art, and themself. Despite forays into learning a heritage language, Tagalog, traveling abroad, and changing their look, the visions persist – until one fateful event, which draws the writer and the mysterious figure together.

With her signature daring approach and evocative prose, Daphne Palasi Andreades explores immigration and modern womanhood in this wholly original novel. Lucid Dreams examines how we find purpose, the nature of change, and the courage it takes to be fully alive today.

Reseñas de la Crítica

Praise for Brown Girls:

‘A love letter to a community and a city … [Brown Girls] holds worlds within its pages’ Guardian

Transporting and energising … not to be missed’ Stylist

‘Strikingly exuberant … an incredibly moving meditation on growing up’ Independent

‘A fierce examination of race, class and marginalisation in America today’ iPaper

‘An ode to girlhood’ Raven Leilani, author of Luster

‘This book is a gift’ Paul Beatty, author of The Sellout

‘Filled with an unforgettable cast of characters … precise and powerful’ Nikesh Shukla, author of Brown Baby

‘A heady, poetic exploration of growing up … It left me speechless’ Huma Qureshi, author of Things We Do Not Tell the People We Love