There are perhaps few Danish writers with such a prolific career as the poet and writer Tove Ditlevsen (1917-76), who published eleven poetry collections, seven novels, and four short fiction collections. Just this year her incredible trio of memoirs, The Copenhagen Trilogy, initially published separately through the 1960s and early 70s, has been translated into… Continue reading The Copenhagen Trilogy by Tove Ditlevsen
Tag: memoir
The Yellow House by Sarah M. Broom
Sarah M. Broom’s National Book ward-winning debut memoir is many things at once. It is not only a personal memoir, but also a comprehensive family history, a history of the city of New Orleans, a mediation on natural disaster, and an exploration of America’s divestment from its black communities. Broom begins the story with her… Continue reading The Yellow House by Sarah M. Broom
Recollections of My Nonexistence by Rebecca Solnit
Purchase a copy for yourself here! Recollections of My Nonexistence begins as a meditation on place—specifically the small but elegant apartment that Solnit moved into in her early 20s, where she began the academic and artistic research that would come to define her work in the following decades. Solnit was a resident of a mostly… Continue reading Recollections of My Nonexistence by Rebecca Solnit
Hunger by Roxane Gay
Purchase a copy for yourself here! “When I was twelve years old I was raped and then I ate and ate and ate to build my body into a fortress,” writes Roxane Gay in her 2017 bestseller, Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body. From the very first pages, it is clear that Hunger is an… Continue reading Hunger by Roxane Gay
In the Land of Men by Adrienne Miller
Purchase a copy for yourself here! In 1997, Adrienne Miller became the first female literary editor of the venerable Esquire magazine at the early age of 25. By this time Esquire had published fiction from some of America’s most distinguished literary voices, including Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Norman Mailer. In her new memoir,… Continue reading In the Land of Men by Adrienne Miller
Uncanny Valley by Anna Wiener
Purchase a copy for yourself here! Perhaps no geographic area in the United States holds as much cultural cache as the northern California region, Silicon Valley. The Valley has become more than just a place, but a signifier of the big tech movement, where college dropouts who can’t legally drink can become billionaires overnight. On… Continue reading Uncanny Valley by Anna Wiener
The Great Pretender by Susannah Cahalan
Purchase a copy for yourself here! The Great Pretender is Susannah Cahalan’s recent follow up to her New York Times bestselling memoir, Brain on Fire, which chronicled her journey with sudden onset paranoia and psychosis that initially got her diagnosed as bipolar and then schizophrenic, but was eventually discovered to be a product of a… Continue reading The Great Pretender by Susannah Cahalan
On Earth Were Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong
Purchase a copy for yourself here! On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous is the first novel from the poet Ocean Vuong, a hybrid memoir and epistolary novel. It is narrated by Little Dog, a boy who shares a great deal with his author. The book is addressed to the narrator’s illiterate mother, whose education ended in… Continue reading On Earth Were Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong
The Topeka School by Ben Lerner
Purchase a copy for yourself here! The Topeka School is the third novel from American poet and author Ben Lerner, the culmination of a literary trilogy of the auto fiction genre. Lerner gives his protagonist, Adam Gordon, a personal history that matches his own: a childhood in Topeka, Kansas, where Lerner was raised by two… Continue reading The Topeka School by Ben Lerner
How We Fight for Our Lives by Saeed Jones
Purchase a copy for yourself here! How We Fight for Our Lives is the debut memoir from award-winning poet and former Buzzfeed editor, Saeed Jones. Jones was born in Memphis, Tennessee and raised in Lewisville, Texas. The memoir is about what it means to be a black gay man in the South, and the survival… Continue reading How We Fight for Our Lives by Saeed Jones