Headline pre-empts memoir from Luna Lovegood actress Lynch

Actress and activist Evanna Lynch is publishing a "raw and compelling" memoir with Headline, exploring eating disorders and "the battle between perfection and creativity".

Lynch, who battled anorexia as a child and is best known for playing Luna Lovegood in the Harry Potter film series, uses the book "to delve into the very heart of a woman’s relationship with her own body", according to the publisher.

Scheduled for release in hardback, e-book and audiobook in September 2021, Headline publishing director Sarah Emsley pre-empted UK and Commonwealth rights in the memoir, as yet untitled, from Rory Scarfe at the Blair Partnership.

The synopsis reads: "Unwilling to let the darkness of her eating disorder eclipse her dreams, but afraid to fully release the certainty and safety of self-destruction, Evanna explores the pivotal moments and choices in her life that led her down the path of creativity and dreaming and away from the empty pursuit of perfection, and reaches towards acceptance of the wild, sensual and unpredictable reality of womanhood.

"This is a story of the tragedy and the glory of growing up, of mourning girlhood and stepping into the unknown, and how that act of courage is the most creatively liberating thing a woman can do."

Emsley said: "Evy Lynch is an extraordinarily talented writer and I couldn’t be prouder to be publishing this searing memoir which details the pain and power of an eating disorder and the beauty, strength and liberation of recovery."

Lynch said: "I’m so grateful to Headline and Sarah Emsley for giving me the opportunity to share my memories and insights on anorexia. For years I’ve been trying in vain to compress a complicated, painful, rich journey into soundbites and interviews and I’ve let the media trivialise and sensationalise a condition that is nuanced, delicate and intensely personal for too long. I know that I have wisdom and interesting stories to tell from the years of therapy, the scores of fascinating creative women I’ve learned from, and from the experiences and feelings held within my own heart and I couldn’t be more thrilled to have the opportunity to put them in a book. I feel incredibly lucky to have a team who are supporting me to write a completely honest account of my journey, and to ruthlessly explore the voices of self-hate, destruction and eating disorders in as much depth as those of self-love, creativity and dreams."