York PhD Student Publishes Novel

A young and solitary student is working on an article for a magazine in which she must write about an underestimated and forgotten author. Although she would prefer to meet a prestigious novelist she decides to interview Frances Donnell, an American author born in the 1950s who is very religious and, after a life-long battle with lupus, has just moved to Spain. A character based upon real writer Flannery O’Connor, Frances is known for her cruel and violent short stories, all of which have a catholic subtext, and for her passion for birds.

As the student is unable to confront her mother’s severe illness, she becomes invested in finding out who Frances is and what her secrets are. Through the first conversation she has with Frances, she believes the writer confesses that, in the 1980s, Milan Kundera stole her manuscript, which would later be published as the well-known novel The Unbearable Lightness of Being. The student publishes the article and although it reaches a wide audience, she is accused of defamation.

The relationship between both women gets more intimate, in a mixture of intellectual attraction and acute tension, as the young protagonist continues to meet Frances—who is unwilling to explicitly accuse Kundera—and becomes determined to prove the robbery took place. In a playful convergence of reality and fiction, The Days of Lightness explores the obsession and loneliness of two characters who seem to be completely different but who are more alike than what seems.

Adriana is completing a PhD thesis on suspicion in the post45 novel. Her supervisor, Dr Alexandra Kingston-Reese, said: "To write and publish a debut novel, while writing a PhD thesis is no small feat—huge congratulations to Adriana on this impressive achievement."