The Book of Joan by Lidia Yuknavitch

There is a power in storytelling. There’s a craft to it, a finality in being the one to tell a narrative. Joan of Dirt is dead according to Jean de Man; she was killed in a public spectacle and her story has been replayed to CIEL (a colony on a space station orbiting Earth) for years as a reminder to those who question. But Christine believes, as many others do, that she still lives.

In Yuknavitch’s world, Joan of Arc and Christine de Pizan are catapulted to a near-future in a tale of revolution, in which humanity is being rewritten through lies, threats and experimentation, all while the earth below lays crumbling. Often when delving into the post-apocalypse, we find a world dishevelled but people ultimately the same but acclimatising to a new era. Here, they are scorched like the earth, barely recognisable, but holding on to hope.

The Book of Joan threads the power of one’s story in many ways. The fire and belief it can instil even in those devoid of sensation and feeling; the protest of etching narratives on your body as a reminder. Joan’s genre-defying life is an enthralling consideration of gender, nature and survival. Brutal, difficult to stomach at times, but a story you cannot cast your eyes from. The Earth is a battleground, destruction of everything is on the line; this is a raw tale that speaks to our times, and it is a story to which you should listen. [Heather McDaid]