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by NATALIA Zabaneh
INTRODUCTION by Lucy Scholes
NEW AFTERWORD by Natalia Zabaneh
Publishes 28 January 2027
‘My one aim in life, the thing that made the future bearable, that gave a centre to my actions, was to have an affair with Kate; a real sexual affair, not toyings and mental flirtations. My desire for her was quite fierce. I wanted her wholly and obsessively.’
Margaret Dean is a middle-aged Chemistry teacher at a North London Girls’ Grammar School. People think she’s a lonely spinster, but she’s not without her hidden—and woefully unsatisfied—passions, which are aroused suddenly when Kate Douchet, the new English teacher, arrives fresh from university.
Seized by intense desire, Margaret fanatically pursues Kate, and they begin a sexually charged relationship that transforms both their lives.
Psychologically thrilling, sexually explicit—and at times chilling—Backlash is a classic story of lesbian fixation and control.
First published in 1970, Backlash is Natalia Zabaneh’s only novel.
‘A strange, uncompromising study of queer desire, power and manipulation. Backlash was strikingly explicit for its time and remains so; it’s not a particularly flattering portrait of lesbian love – which may be why it feels so modern, and (I hate to admit) curiously relatable’—Kirsty Logan, author of No & Other Love Stories
‘Backlash is a masterclass in how we can become unhinged by desire. Beneath the deliciously crisp sentences is queer longing in its most unsanitised form: messy, possessive, and violently horny. I loved being trapped in this claustrophobic world'—Jane Flett, author of Freakslaw
‘More than fifty-five years since its first publication, Backlash is still a startling novel. The theme of controlling love in an all-girls school may be familiar to readers of twentieth-century lesbian fiction, but Natalia Zabaneh’s piercingly sharp prose and penetrating characterisation offer something new at every turn. Exploring uneasy frictions between youth and age, truth and deception, tenderness and violence, and love and obsession, Backlash pushes unreliable narration to its limits. A brilliant and unsettling novel, where danger and destruction are never far away’—Hannah Roche, author of The Outside Thing: Modernist Lesbian Romance; co-editor of Literary Narratives of Coercive Control
‘An age-gap u-haul lez-tale written at a time when the stakes were higher but expression was more carefree. Margaret–the narrator–wobbles precariously on the line between grotesque and worthy of compassion; tragic and comic, shameful and proud. I loved the book, but I'm not sure if I loved it in the correct way’—Crystal Jeans, author of Accidental Darlings
by NATALIA Zabaneh
INTRODUCTION by Lucy Scholes
NEW AFTERWORD by Natalia Zabaneh
Publishes 28 January 2027
‘My one aim in life, the thing that made the future bearable, that gave a centre to my actions, was to have an affair with Kate; a real sexual affair, not toyings and mental flirtations. My desire for her was quite fierce. I wanted her wholly and obsessively.’
Margaret Dean is a middle-aged Chemistry teacher at a North London Girls’ Grammar School. People think she’s a lonely spinster, but she’s not without her hidden—and woefully unsatisfied—passions, which are aroused suddenly when Kate Douchet, the new English teacher, arrives fresh from university.
Seized by intense desire, Margaret fanatically pursues Kate, and they begin a sexually charged relationship that transforms both their lives.
Psychologically thrilling, sexually explicit—and at times chilling—Backlash is a classic story of lesbian fixation and control.
First published in 1970, Backlash is Natalia Zabaneh’s only novel.
‘A strange, uncompromising study of queer desire, power and manipulation. Backlash was strikingly explicit for its time and remains so; it’s not a particularly flattering portrait of lesbian love – which may be why it feels so modern, and (I hate to admit) curiously relatable’—Kirsty Logan, author of No & Other Love Stories
‘Backlash is a masterclass in how we can become unhinged by desire. Beneath the deliciously crisp sentences is queer longing in its most unsanitised form: messy, possessive, and violently horny. I loved being trapped in this claustrophobic world'—Jane Flett, author of Freakslaw
‘More than fifty-five years since its first publication, Backlash is still a startling novel. The theme of controlling love in an all-girls school may be familiar to readers of twentieth-century lesbian fiction, but Natalia Zabaneh’s piercingly sharp prose and penetrating characterisation offer something new at every turn. Exploring uneasy frictions between youth and age, truth and deception, tenderness and violence, and love and obsession, Backlash pushes unreliable narration to its limits. A brilliant and unsettling novel, where danger and destruction are never far away’—Hannah Roche, author of The Outside Thing: Modernist Lesbian Romance; co-editor of Literary Narratives of Coercive Control
‘An age-gap u-haul lez-tale written at a time when the stakes were higher but expression was more carefree. Margaret–the narrator–wobbles precariously on the line between grotesque and worthy of compassion; tragic and comic, shameful and proud. I loved the book, but I'm not sure if I loved it in the correct way’—Crystal Jeans, author of Accidental Darlings