MINE
Essays

Sarah Viren (Author)

9780826359544

Paperback / softback, published 28 February 2018

176 pages
20 x 13.9 x 1.7 cm, 0.525 kg

With wonderfully precise and evocative prose, Sarah Viren takes us deeply into her search for her very self. . . . MINE is not only moving, it is instructive and nourishing in a way that only art can deliver. This book is a gem."" - Andre Dubus III, author of House of Sand and Fog

""Sarah Viren is a writer of extraordinary wisdom and grace. . . . I am always taken aback, in the end, when her essays—cunningly, imperceptibly—gather within themselves such stunning emotional power."" - Kerry Howley, author of Thrown

""Ultimately a book about belonging, this nimble, beautiful collection helps us better understand ‘what we call ours but is never really ours to begin with."" - Ryan Van Meter, author of If You Knew Then What I Know Now

This is a book about ownership. It begins with an essay about being given a man’s furniture while he’s on trial for murder and follows with essays that question corporeal, familial, and intellectual forms of ownership. What does it mean to believe that a hand, or a child, or a country, or a story belongs to you? What happens if you realize you’re wrong? Mining her own life and those of others, Sarah Viren considers the contingencies of ownership alongside the realities of loss in this debut essay collection.