Overcoming

Sunday Times Memoir of the Year 2019

RTÉ Radio 1 Listeners' Choice Award Winner 2019 - An Post Irish Book Awards

When Vicky Phelan delivered an emotionally charged statement from the steps of the Four Courts in April 2018 - having refused to sign a non-disclosure agreement in the settlement of her action against the HSE - she unearthed the medical and political scandal of our times. It would emerge that, like Vicky, 220 other women who were diagnosed with cervical cancer were not informed that a clinical audit -carried out by the national screen programme CervicalCheck - had revised their earlier, negative smear tests. Their cancers could possibly have been preventable.

Since then, Vicky has become women's voice for justice on the issue, and her system-changing activism has made her a household name.

In her memoir Overcoming, Vicky shares her remarkable personal story, from a life-threatening accident in early adulthood through to motherhood, a battle with depression, her devastating later discovery that her cancer had returned in shocking circumstances - and the ensuing detective-like scrutiny of events that led the charge for her history-making legal action.

An inspiring story of rare resilience and power, Overcoming is an account of how one woman can move mountains - even when she is fighting for her own life - and of finding happiness and strength in the toughest of times.

'Calls to mind the work of Emilie Pine, or the memoir by Maggie O'Farrell, I Am, I Am, I Am ... Overcoming is more than the retelling of an extraordinary life. Its pacing and gentleness leaves plenty of room for tears and for reflection' Irish Independent