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A life of one's own
Hardback
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- Book Synopsis
- I took off my wedding ring - a gold band with half a line of 'Morning Song' by Sylvia Plath etched inside - and for weeks afterwards, my thumb would involuntarily reach across my palm for the warm bright circle that had gone. I didn't throw the ring into the long grass, like women do in the movies, but a feeling began bubbling up nevertheless, from my stomach to my throat: it could fling my arms out. I was free. A few years into her marriage and feeling societal pressure to surrender to domesticity, Joanna Biggs found herself longing for a different kind of existence. Was this all there was? She divorced without knowing what would come next. Newly untethered, Joanna returned to the free-spirited writers of her youth and was soon reading in a fever - desperately searching for evidence of lives that looked more like her own, for the messiness and freedom, for a possible blueprint for intellectual fulfillment. In A Life of One's Own, Mary Wollstonecraft, George Eliot, Zora Neale Hurston, Virginia Woolf, Simone de Beauvoir, Sylvia Plath, Toni Morrison, and Elena Ferrante are all taken down from their pedestals, their work and lives seen in a new light. Joanna wanted to learn more about the conditions these women needed to write their best work, and how they addressed the questions she herself was struggling with: Is domesticity a trap? Is life worth living if you have lost faith in the traditional goals of a woman? Why is it so important for women to read one another? This is a radical and intimate examination of the unconventional paths these women took - their pursuits and achievements but also their disappointments and hardships. And in exploring the things that gave their lives the most meaning, we find fuel for our own singular intellectual paths.
- About The Author
- Joanna Biggs is an editor at Harper's Magazine. Previously an associate editor at the London Review of Books, she is one of the founders of Silver Press, a London-based feminist publishing house. She has also written for the New Yorker, the FT and the Guardian, as well as appearing on BBC Radio 4 and at events in London, Berlin and New York. Her first book, All Day Long: A Portrait of Britain at Work, was published in 2015, and was one of the Observer's books of the year.
- Product Details
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- ISBN
- 9781474621229
- Format
- Hardback
- Publisher
- Weidenfeld & Nicolson, (11 May 2023)
- Number of Pages
- 264
- Weight
- 400 grams
- Language
- English
- Dimensions
- 218 x 140 x 30 mm
- Categories: