Aged 15 and on track to be an Olympic gymnast, Lucia Osborne-Crowley was violently raped on a night out. The injuries she sustained that evening ended her gymnastics career, and eventually manifested in life-long chronic illnesses, which medical professionals now believe can be caused by untreated trauma.

In a brilliantly researched and deeply affecting essay, Osborne-Crowley invites the reader to her on decade-long journey to recovery: from the immediate aftermath of the assault, through years of misdiagnosis, to the solace and strength she found in writers like Elena Ferrante.

The author's investigations reveal profound societal failures - of law, justice, education and the healthcare system. An essential contribution to the field of literature on assault and trauma, I Choose Elena argues that it is only through empathy than we can begin to address the self-perpetuating cycle of sexual violence.

About the Author

Lucia Osborne-Crowley is a writer and journalist. Her news reporting and literary work has appeared in Granta, the Sunday Times, HuffPost UK, the Guardian, ABC News, Meanjin, The Lifted Brow and others. Lucia works as a staff reporter for Law360.

I Choose Elena is her first book. Her second book, My Body Keeps Your Secrets: Dispatches on Shame and Reclamation, was published on 2 September 2021.

Reviews

Mention of the book in 'Women essayists shift the rules and boundaries in the literary world'

https://www.ft.com/content/e8126aec-b1e3-11e9-bec9-fdcab53d6959

* Financial Times *

Review: I Choose Elena by Lucia Osborne-Crowley

'a thoroughly researched and deeply affecting essay . . . In the age of #MeToo and Harvey Weinstein allegations this essay is an essential contribution to the field of literature on assault and trauma'

https://thefountain.scot/reviews/2019/09/review-i-choose-elena-by-lucia-osborne-crowley/

-- Keira Brown * The Fountain *

'How Bibliotherapy Helped Me To Deal With Trauma'

'There is nothing more comforting than having someone bear witness to your suffering. It is the only thing, I believe, that allows us to feel pain instead of trying to escape from it. It is knowing the writer has felt how you feel, and has done the kindness of putting it into words.'

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/how-bibliotherapy-helped-me-to-deal-with-trauma-ptwdfhhln

* The Sunday Times *

'Write what you want to forget'

'Honesty is why I started. So I have accepted the fact that this story is imperfect, that people might try to destroy me in the details. It will not be an easy ending, or a pleasant one, but it will be, for the first time, one that I have chosen.'

http://bookanista.com/write-forget/

* Bookanista.com *

'Love After Abuse'

'What I have been able to do is accept the truth of my intimate self. I know now that she is bloodied and broken, and perhaps damaged beyond repair. But I am trying, and will keep trying, because whoever was buried under the weight of abuse is worth fighting for.'

https://granta.com/love-after-abuse/

* Granta.com *

'The Paradox of Dependence'

'To keep becoming a woman is so much self-erasing work. I will not be the cool girl, the dream girl, the crane-wife, because she is a lie. She is a straw-woman in a field full of hungry ravens, and I am done with her. She's not worth it, and neither is he.'

https://meanjin.com.au/blog/the-paradox-of-dependence/

* Meanjin Quarterly *

'Two years on, the literature of #MeToo is coming of age'

'A masterful examination of trauma and finding solace in literature.'

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/oct/14/literature-metoo-writing-power-gender-relations-men

* Guardian *

'A Cure of One's Own'

'In the past couple of years more than a dozen books have been published by women about women's pain conditions ... including Lucia Osborne-Crowley's I Choose Elena'

https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/books/2019/11/womens-chronic-illness-pain-conditions-endometriosis-vaginismus-vulvodynia-literature

-- Imogen West-Knights * New Statesmen *

'Frozen'

'For anyone who has ever doubted a rape story, demanding, "Why did you wait so long before you told anyone?", Lucia Osborne-Crowley's short memoir is essential reading.'

https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/i-choose-elena-by-lucia-osborne-crowley-book-review-terri-apter/

-- Terri Apter * The TLS *

'Is it messed up?'

'On the surface, I Choose Elena is an exploration of trauma - of the debilitating and disabling physical and mental impact of the author's rape as a teenager. The way trauma can turn your body against you; the way you think you can outrun or ignore it, but you never can.'

Summer Issue

-- Alice Wickenden * Brixton Review of Books *

'It is a ground breaking approach to discussing issues that we know are so often hidden'

https://twitter.com/SLTNorfolk/status/1339189801195630592

-- Sonia (manager) * Sue Lambert Trust *

CRITICA A DOS VOCES DE 'ELIJO A ELENA', DE LUCIA OSBORNE- CROWLEY (Joint review of I Choose Elena)

Tensi: 'Todo esto lo cuenta en este libro, que huye de eufemismos y cuenta la realidad sin matices, quizas por eso se debe leer sosegadamente, pues el dolor se puede palpar muy adentro.' (All of this is recounted in this book, which shuns euphemisms and tells reality without nuances, perhaps this is why one should read it gently, because one can feel the pain deep inside.'

Miriam: 'Yo elijo a Lucia. Ella me ha liberado. Me ha ayudado a encontrarme.' (I choose Lucia. She has freed me. She has helped me find myself.'

https://lecturafilia.com/2020/12/21/critica-a-dos-voces-de-elijo-a-elena-de-lucia-osborne-crowley/

-- Tensi Gesteira and Miriam Beizana * Lecturafilia *

Shameful: Women who write about their pain suffer a double shaming: once for getting injured, twice for their act of self-exposure

'In her memoir I Choose Elena (2019), Lucia Osborne-Crowley gives a moving account of a violent sexual assault she underwent as a teenager, and its ensuing aftermath in the form of chronic physical illness.'

https://aeon.co/essays/shame-heaps-upon-shame-in-womens-memoirs-of-suffering

-- Katherine Angel * Aeon *



Book Information
ISBN 9781999683399
Author Lucia Osborne-Crowley
Format Paperback
Page Count 144
Imprint The Indigo Press
Publisher The Indigo Press
Weight(grams) 118g
Dimensions(mm) 178mm * 111mm * 11mm