Into the Dark

What darkness is and why it matters JACQUELINE YALLOP

Can you remember the first time you encountered true darkness? The kind that remains as black and inky whether your eyes are open or closed? Where you can’t see your hand in front of your face?

Jacqueline Yallop can. It was in an unfamiliar bedroom while holidaying as a child, and ever since then she has been fascinated by the dark, by our efforts to capture or avoid it, by the meanings we give to it and the way our brains process it.

Darkness captivates, baffles and appals us. It’s a shifty thing of many textures, many moods, a state of fascination and of horror, an absence and a presence, solace and threat, a beginning and an end. Into the Dark is the story of the many darks that fascinate and assail us. It faces the darkness full on in all its guises and mysteries, celebrating it as a thing of beauty while peering into the void.

Drawing on science, literature, art and psychology, Jacqueline Yallop explores our fascination with the dark.

JACQUELINE YALLOP is the author of three critically acclaimed novels and three works of non-fiction. Jacqueline teaches Creative Writing at the University of Aberystwyth, and divides her time between the UK and south-west France.