Dreaming of Dead People

Shortlisted for the 2026 Republic of Consciousness Prize, US & Canada

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.

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Praise:

‘Dreaming of Dead People by Rosalind Belben was brilliant. It’s a life story but it’s told in various sections [. . .] – there’s one that goes on about Robin Hood, then there’s one about masturbation. Collectively, it provides a more cohesive sense of a whole psyche than a regular life story would.’ - Claire-Louise Bennett

‘Extremely beautiful, utterly convincing, and rivals anything by Virginia Woolf.’ - Melissa Harrison

‘A seductively strange novel. In Belben’s writing, time periods dissolve: the phenomenon of the medieval pageant is invoked; Robin Hood becomes a character; dreams are recorded; and desires rise up, then settle down.’ - Rhian Sasseen