ISDAL cover art

ISDAL

Winner of the PEN Heaney Prize 2024

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ISDAL

By: Susannah Dickey
Narrated by: Susannah Dickey
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About this listen

The much-anticipated debut poetry collection, written and read by acclaimed novelist Susannah Dickey, on the subject of our cultural obsession with true crime.

ISDAL is a timely interrogation of the true crime genre. In the first of its three parts, we follow the flirty co-presenters of a podcast about the mystery of 'Isdal Woman', whose burnt remains were discovered in Norway in 1970 and who has never been identified. At the centre of the book is a philosophical enquiry into our perennial obsession with female victims, sexiness, and death: ‘The death in question has already occurred’, the poet observes, ‘has occurred to someone sufficiently abstract as to allow us to romp gainfully, guilelessly, guiltlessly through a simulacrum of death’s corridors’. The free verse poems in the final section both explore and—perhaps inevitably—enact the ethical ambiguities of the genre. Witty, excoriating, formally ingenious, ISDAL marks the arrival of a thrilling new talent in contemporary poetry.

 Death, Grief & Loss European Poetry Themes & Styles World Literature Witty

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Critic reviews

A poet of tremendous imaginative range, artistic vision, and accomplishment (Kayo Chingonyi, author of A Blood Condition)
Susannah Dickey’s bloodthirsty for marriage made me think of Alice Notley in its urgency and playfulness. But Dickey is more surreal, more vivid; there are more dead gerbils. These are poems that scorch the earth with their originality and then write out of the ashes. (Will Harris)
A rare talent, and certainly one to watch.
Using the real-life case of an unidentified woman’s body found in Norway as a jumping off point, this brilliantly realised first collection by the novelist Susannah Dickey is a multilayered investigation into the ethics of the true crime genre
[ISDAL pushes] the boundary of how we might think about form and genre . . . Dickey brings a singular voice and a unique complexity to her investigation (Tara Bergin)
ISDAL is a peculiar, cerebral, and subversive book full of heart, which expands the limits of what we consider poetry
A body of work that raises important questions and makes you question yourself and everything you have been told. Surreal, thoughtful, and surprisingly playful, it’s not often that you will read a book of poetry that will have you gasping in horror one minute, smiling ruefully the next.
All stars
Most relevant
What an absolutely spectacular book of poetry, read in an enthusiastic and engaging manner. Would 100% recommend all poetry lovers to listen to this tour de force by a generational defining poet

Stunning poetry

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