Eva (novel)

Eva is a science fiction novel for young adults by Peter Dickinson, published by Gollancz in 1988. Set in a dystopian future, it features "the hybrid that results when the brain-patterns and memory of a dying girl are transferred into the brain of a chimpanzee." Dickinson researched chimp behavior for the book and he dedicated it to Jane Goodall.

Eva was highly commended for the annual British Carnegie Medal and in 2008 it won the retrospective Phoenix Award. It is one of Dickinson's best known works and by far his most popular in the U.S.

Plot introduction

When 13-year-old Eva is badly injured in a car accident, her consciousness is transplanted into the body of a chimpanzee. The novel concerns her efforts to adjust to her unique situation. The setting is a future when urban civilization has spread across the globe, with disastrous effects on other species.

Plot summary

The novel opens as Eva wakes up in a hospital bed, paralyzed. Her mother assures her she will be fine, that the doctors will gradually reduce the paralysis. Eva guesses that her face has been badly scarred, but when she looks in a mirror, she sees the face of a chimpanzee. An experimental procedure has been used to transplant Eva's "neuron memory" into Kelly, a young chimp from her father's research facility.