Memoir Essays

For the September 2016 issue of GQ, Michael Chabon wrote a piece about accompanying his son Abraham Chabon, then 13, to Paris Men's Fashion Week. Possessed with a precocious sense of style, Abe was in his element chatting with designers he idolized and turning a critical eye to the freshest runway looks of the season; Chabon Sr., whose interest in clothing stops at "thrift-shopping for vintage western shirts or Hermès neckties," sat idly by, staving off yawns and fighting the impulse that the whole thing was a massive waste of time.

Uprooting ourselves and putting down roots elsewhere has become second nature. Americans are among the most mobile people on the planet, moving house an average of nine times in adulthood. Mobile Home explores one family's extreme and often international version of this common experience. Inspired by Megan Harlan's globe-wandering childhood, Mobile Home maps the emotional structures and metaphysical geographies of home.

Before Adam Farrer’s family relocated to Withernsea in 1992, he’d never heard of the Holderness coast. The move represented one thing to Adam: a chance to leave the insecurities of early adolescence behind. And he could do that anywhere. What he didn’t know was how much he’d grow to love the quirks and people of this faded Yorkshire resort, in spite of its dilapidated attractions and retreating clifftops. While Adam documents the minutiae of small-town life, he lays bare experiences that are universal.

In Traveling without Moving, Coleman shares intimate essays from her life: her childhood in Chicago—growing up in poverty with four siblings and a single mother—and the empowering decision to leave her first marriage. She writes about being the only Black student in a prestigious and predominantly White creative writing program, about institutional racism and implicit bias in writing instruction, about the violent legacies of racism in the US housing market, about the maternal health disparities seen across the country and their implication in her own miscarriage.

Across these twenty fresh and boldly intimate stories, Erin Riley writes about the things that matter most: family, heartbreak, humanity, justice and swimming, and the messy, hard graft of becoming one's authentic self. In weaving together their everyday while questioning society and its structures, Erin gifts us stories that double as a manifesto on how to disrupt and reinvent narrative, identity, love and community.

Wife | Daughter | Self investigates identity and the writing life through the perspective of one of the nation’s top memoir teachers and critics.

大ブレイク中のガールズグループ「NiziU」をはじめ、「2PM」「TWICE」など数々の人気アーティストを生んだ世界的プロデューサーが、自らのこれまでの歩みと哲学をつづる。

アイダホの山奥で育ったタラ。狂信的なモルモン教原理主義者の父の方針で、学校へも通わせてもらえず、病院に行くのも禁じられていた。兄からは虐待も受けていた。

2020年2月から3月のイタリア、ローマ。200万部のベストセラーと物理学博士号をもつ小説家、パオロ・ジョルダーノにもたらされた空白は、１冊の傑作を生みだした。

An essay in biography, Rollyson argues, is an effort to comprehend a life that is inherently incomplete and subject to revision. Many of the facts about a biographical subject's life that are blandly presented in reference books have been discovered by biographers at great cost to their reputations. With the history of biography as a censored genre in mind, he encourages consumers of biography to be critical of the biographies they come across - no matter whether those biographies are book-length narratives or short encyclopedia entries.

In sixteen wholly original essays that blend memoir, cultural criticism, investigative journalism, and a dash of fanfiction, Walker places her own experiences within the larger context of the pressing and underdiscussed aspects of contemporary American womanhood that make up daily life. She explores the allure and violence of assimilating into white womanhood in all its hegemonic glory, exposes the ways in which the truth of trans women's reproductive healthcare is erased in favor of reactionary narratives, and considers how our agency is stripped from us—purely on account of our bodies.

'Indian-Australian' is not a one-size-fits-all descriptor. Given the depth and richness of diversity of the Indian subcontinent, it is fitting that its diaspora is similarly varied. Growing Up Indian in Australia reflects and celebrates this vibrant diversity. It features contributions from Australian-Indian writers, both established and emerging, who hail from a wide range of backgrounds, religions and experiences. This colorful, energetic anthology offers reflections on identity, culture, family, food and expectations, ultimately revealing deep truths about both Australian and Indian life.

Embracing the possibilities and impossibilities of language, Kim rejoices in the similes of Korean, her mother tongue, and draws inspiration from K-dramas and writers across cultures who sustain her. As borders close in and nations enter lockdown, the journey that Kim traces is fraught-and at once illuminates that the act of remaining present has its own power, allowing boundless hope.

What happens to the adolescent spirit when all vestiges of innocence about the world are foregone, replaced within the grinding sounds of concrete and metal of the CBD of Melbourne? A place where train tunnels become nesting sites, carpark stairwells spots to refuel on methamphetamine and hide from predators; where agility leads you across nightclub rooftops, yielding cash in tight spaces with a quick reflex. For a rest, why not ride on the back of a train as it speeds through the night? The dangers of a decades-long exploration of risk in the streets of his city is exhilarating.

This book helps you see, think, and feel back together those parts of yourself the Western mind reduced to rubble. If you feel integration to be unnatural, that’s your problem at a glance. I apologize that the day is dawning and there’s work we need to do, but hello. It’s time to wake up.

A few years ago, Erica Heller realized how universal the longing is for one more moment with a lost loved one. It could be a parent, a sibling, a mentor, or a friend, but who wouldn't love the opportunity to sit down, break bread, and just talk? Who wouldn't jump at the chance to ask those unasked questions, or share those unvoiced feelings?

A personal story promising laughs, surprises, tears, and joy, and guaranteed to warm your heart! When a grandmother embarked on a two-week travel adventure to Italy with her eighteen-year-old twin granddaughters, Margie Miklas’s long-awaited dream became a reality. Excited to share her beloved Italia, she hoped to create a special experience they’d treasure for the rest of their lives.

Mit ihren Romanen ist Herta Müller berühmt geworden – in ihren Essays gibt sie Auskunft über sich und ihre Zeit. Wohl nirgends ist ihr bizarrer Weg aus einem Dorf in Rumänien in die Welt der Literatur so gut nachvollziehbar. In den ausgewählten Texten erzählt sie von Kindheit und Jugend, berichtet von den Verfolgungen durch die Geheimpolizei, aber sie widmet sich auch Fragen ihres eigenen Schreibens, seinen literarischen und politischen Seiten. Mit der Stockholmer Rede zur Nobelpreisverleihung und der Tischrede im Originalton.

When Seth Kantner's Ordinary Wolves was published, it was a literary revelation of sorts. In a raw, stylized voice, it told the story of a white boy growing up with homesteading parents in Arctic Alaska and trying to reconcile his largely subsistence and Native-style upbringing with the expectations and realities tied to his race. It hit numerous bestseller lists, was critically acclaimed, and won a number of awards.

В тайниках памяти — захватывающий рассказ о поисках таинственного автора романа "Лабиринт бесчеловечности", вызвавшего в Париже 1938 года бурю эмоций: одни называли его новым Артюром Рембо, другие обвиняли в плагиате. В наши дни книга производит неизгладимое впечатление на начинающего сенегальского писателя ДиеганаЛатираФайе, и он задается целью выяснить, что случилось с этим бесследно исчезнувшим человеком. Мысленное путешествие в прошлое и реальное — по следам автора — погружает Диегана в подробности давних драматических событий колониальной эпохи, Первой мировой войны, Холокоста.