behind the sky

Deian wants to be normal but Anest has long abandoned normality. The two very different teens support each other unfailingly, but can they escape the self-hatred weighing them down?

behind the sky tells the story of two very different LGBTQIA+ teens who meet at a psychiatric facility, forming an unexpected friendship that transforms the trajectory of their lives.

Sixteen-year-old Deian wants to be something that doesn’t exist: normal. He wants to feel things in the same way as everyone else, to ride the school bus without having a panic attack, to have real conversations with real friends and not imagined ones with dead artists. Seventeen-year-old Anest, however, has long abandoned her quest for normality. She doesn’t think she deserves to be here on this doomed planet, so doesn’t really care if everyone else thinks she’s weird and obnoxious (well, maybe everyone apart from that girl she can’t stop staring at in group therapy).

Their friendship doesn't really take off until they find themselves stuck in the same toilet stall at someone else’s birthday party. After this encounter they support each other unfailingly, but they’re unable to turn that same affection towards themselves and continue to grapple with the self-hatred that threatens to drown them.

Can Anest and Deian find a way to free themselves from the weight of normality and - together - realise that an entire sky of possibilities is waiting for them?

Adapted by the author, Behind the Sky was originally published in Welsh as tu ôl i’r awr, (Y Lolfa, 2020) and won the Welsh language Wales Book of the year Award in 2021, when it was described by Yoto Carnegie winner Manon Steffan Ros as ‘The best, most powerful novel I’ve read in years. A masterpiece.’

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