First published 2024
Sofia Samatar examines the tensions between writing and publishing through correspondence with a fellow writer. She weaves together personal letters and literary analysis to explore questions that plague authors: why publishing seems to oppose the act of writing itself, how Black women writers resist being reduced to symbols at conferences and interviews, whether writers exist in their life stories or their texts. Samatar draws on thinkers like Édouard Glissant, who wrote about identity's necessary opacity, and Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, whose work models literary kinship. She also turns to Clarice Lispector, Maurice Blanchot, and Rainer Maria Rilke for guidance on the writing process. Through compressed prose pieces that blend correspondence with criticism, Samatar searches for ways to rediscover intimacy in her craft and answer the central question: how does the next book get written? The result merges author and character, personal reflection and literary theory, creating a meditation on writing as it exists within passionate conversations and beloved texts.
Genres: african-american, biography-memoir, criticism, 21st-century, books-about-books, academic
Vibes: intimate, lyrical, thought-provoking
Tropes: author-character-blending, personal-reflection-literary-theory
192 pages · Paperback · Soft Skull