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A book of short fiction by multiple award-winning author, Dorothy Simmons. This collection contains 21 new stories that deal with various themes centring on human relationships, critical choices, and casual cruelties. 

The stories in Only One Life are written from a female perspective. Central to each is the assertion of individual agency: the ability to take charge of your life, to make your own myth.

 

Some narratives envisage historical events, others explore contemporary issues. Sixteenth-century queens bury their differences, a refugee on Nauru paints the stars, a librarian re-enacts The Importance of Being Earnest, and a widow looks through a telescope at Jupiter rising.

 

In each story, the question is raised: whose life is this? And how have everyday choices and defining moments shaped it?

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Only One Life

"In 'The Situation', Simmons takes us to Northern Ireland and explores sectarianism in a tightly woven story about a father and daughter..."  

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