Christine Donovan
Writing about the Situationist International
Dériveville
Available from 30th March 2026
Book Launch Housmans Bookshop 22nd April 2026 with Tom VagueJump Derry
15 Year Anniversary Edition available soon
Dériveville
Exploring the long term influence of the Situationist International, this novel is set in 1981 in Paris, as English literary sensation Julia finds herself writing a screenplay with legendary nouvelle vague film director Lenica, one of the enrages offered membership of the SI after the events of May 1968.
The hedonism of the Cannes Film Festival, the drug-fueled excitement of Les Bains Douche and the tentative writing of a second novel take Julia on a psychogeographical journey through love, Paris and the Polish expatriates trying to find a way through the winter where history is about to go badly wrong."Sit-lit psychogeography" - Tom Vague
Publication date 30th March 2026
Pre-order via your local bookstore, online or direct from Waterstones using the links below:
Jump Derry
Easter 2005. Janie can win the feis—but she has no idea how to navigate first love. Between emo fashion, My Chemical Romance, school corridors and a boyfriend who wants more than she’s ready for, she finds herself watching Martin, a freerunner who leaps across the city, finding paths where there seem to be only obstacles.Her mother, Marianne, haunted by the legacy of the Troubles and her brother’s violent death, is trapped in a marriage that has lost its meaning. As the anniversary approaches, she too longs for a way through her past—yet jumping doesn’t always guarantee a safe landing.First published 15 years ago, Jump Derry was Christine Donovan’s debut novel and went on to win the 2011 International Rubery Book Award. Bold, tender and unforgettable, it remains a story about love, memory and the courage to move forward.To mark its 15th anniversary, this special new edition will be published in April—inviting a new generation of readers to discover a novel that changes how you walk through your city, your problems and your life.
15 Year Anniversary Edition coming soon
About
I am a settled Irish Traveller novelist and non fiction writer. I have been totally influenced by the Situationist International since the late 1980s and am writing a non fiction work around the everyday life of the Si, along with some of the women involved with the group.
I took part in the Liminal Residency's Heathrow Airport experience in 2018, and was writer in residence at La Macina di San Cresci in Tuscany in 2024.
I have worked at paid work infrequently.
About the Situationist International
Formed in Italy in 1957, Guy Debord and his wife Michele Bernstein were the driving forces behind what became one of the most important revolutionary political and philosphical groups in Europe.
Their theories were psychogeography, a walk without a map or destination, guided only by your emotional response to your environment, and the derive, the walk itself, detournement, the art of putting an opposite message onto an image, and the Spectacle, the over arching mass media that tells us to obey, conform and consume endlessly. All of this is to encourage a revolutionary transformation of everyday life, to see how life can be lived when we aren't working ourselves to death, and to discover the joy and fulfilment of what life can be.
"These ideas are in everyone's head's" wrote Guy Debord, and this was shown most forcefully when the government of France nearly collapsed under the weight of a general strike and massive protests in May 1968. Situationist inspired graffiti decorated the Left Bank with slogans such as "Take your Desires for Reality", "Live without Dead Time" and "Underneath the Paving Stones, the Beach".
Since the group disbanded in 1972 their ideas have become increasingly relevant, while their message and ideas have been bought back and regurgitated by the Spectacle, as Debord said they would be.
Further Reading
The Game of War by Andrew Hussey
Panegyric by Guy Debord
The Revolution of Everyday Life by Raoul Vaneigem
Mostly, I Just Walk Around