Episode
Who’s afraid of realism? ‘Voyage in the Dark’ by Jean Rhys
- Podcast
- Close Readings
- Published
- Jun 22, 2026
- Duration seconds
- 1206
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Summary
In ‘A Room of One’s Own’, Virginia Woolf writes about how radical it feels to read the sentences: ‘Chloe liked Olivia. They shared a laboratory together…’. Woolf probably didn’t know the work of her contemporary Jean Rhys, but if she had read ‘A Voyage in the Dark’ (1934), she might well have marvelled at, and even envied, its radical realism. Rhys’ story of a young woman who moves from the Caribbean to England and enters a world of financial and sexual exploitation was drawn from experiences unavailable to Woolf. In this episode, James is joined by the biographer Miranda Seymour to discuss Rhys’s virtuosity of technique and detachment, her extraordinary ear for dialogue and the places where her mastery of realist method gave way to modernism. Non-subscribers will only hear an extract from the episode. To listen in full, and to all our other Close Readings series, sign up: Apple Podcasts: https://lrb.me/applecrwaor Other podcast apps: https://lrb.me/closereadingswaor Read more in the LRB: Mary-Kay Wilmers on Jean Rhys: https://lrb.me/waorep701 Carole Angier on Rhys's letters: https://lrb.me/waorep702 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices