Helen Cullen for Iseult

Raised in myth. Silenced by scandal. As her mother lies dying, Iseult Gonne must reclaim the one story she was never allowed to tell - her own. Join novelist Helen Cullen as she reimagines the life of this extraordinary figure from Irish history...

Set over a single day in 1953 Dublin, Iseult Gonne - child genius, poet, muse, and daughter of radical icon Maud Gonne - journeys to her mother's deathbed. Iseult has lived in the shadow of greatness. Her poetry rivalled Yeats's. Her beauty mirrored Maud's. Yet, born out of wedlock, her identity as Maud's daughter was denied.

Now, with time running out, Iseult embarks on a pilgrimage through Dublin, her small dog Magi by her side. As memories surface - of convent discipline and glittering salons; of revolutionary hope and private heartbreak; of love denied and loss that shaped her - what began as a quest for maternal acknowledgment unfolds into a devastating reckoning of truth, identity and legacy.

Iseult is a haunting, lyrical novel of the quiet revolutions forged within - as a daughter walks towards her mother, and herself.

Helen Cullen is an Irish novelist. She has published two novels, The Lost Letters of William Woolf and The Truth Must Dazzle Gradually, and her debut garnered her a Best Newcomer nomination at the Irish Book Awards. Helen is a Reader in Creative Writing at Brunel University, a literary critic for The Irish Times, a writer for The Sunday Times Magazine, and a BBC broadcasting contributor.