Pathemata

A profound and deeply personal exploration of pain, the body and loss by the beloved author of Bluets and The Argonauts 'Full of warmth, wisdom and weirdness' JENNY MUSTARD This is a dreamlike portrait of a body in struggle to connect with itself and others. As the narrator contends with chronic pain, and with a pandemic raging in the background, she sets out to examine the literal and symbolic role of the mouth in the life of a writer. Pathemata recounts the narrator's tragicomic search to alleviate her suffering, a search that eventually becomes a reckoning with various forms of loss - the loss of intimacy, the loss of her father and the loss of a pivotal friend and mentor. In exacting, distilled prose, her account blurs the lines between embodied, unconscious and everyday life. Praise for Maggie Nelson 'I remember where I was when I read each of Maggie Nelson's books in the same way I remember a place where I heard important news' ANNE ENRIGHT 'Always brilliant' GEOFF DYER 'Among the sharpest and most supple thinkers of her generation' OLIVIA LAING

Maggie Nelson is the author of several books of prose and poetry including The Red Parts, Bluets, the National Book Critics Circle Award-winner The Argonauts, On Freedom, Like Love and, most recently, Pathemata. She teaches at the University of Southern California and lives in Los Angeles.