In an exuberant essay anticipating the publication of Eleven Letters to You, the critic and editor Helen Elliott describes the deep pleasure of working on the book: ‘The satisfaction of writing this book, of making it as good as I can has been unlike anything I’ve ever known. A necessary joy, the deepest new, an entirely selfish pleasure. A small and ravishing bomb inside me’ (The Monthly, May 2023). After this introduction, it was a relief to read the book and find that it doesn’t disappoint. The exuberance of the writing process filters through to the finished pages, populated with ostensibly ‘ordinary people’ – Elliott’s highly provisional term – who have made a deep impression on the writer.

Eleven Letters to You is, as the title suggests, a collection of letters written to the people who guided Elliott away from the life that she might have led: a life without higher education, with a job in the Postmaster General’s office at a lower rate of pay than male employees, a dull boyfriend, and limiting ideas about national identity and about women. Elliott reflects on their gift, and now readers may hold her small and ravishing book in their hands.