Imagination and Repetition in Chronic Illness Memoir
The aesthetic project of chronic illness memoir is inescapably tied to its political project. Within the wider genre, we might discern a politics of repetition.
Porochista Khakpour
The Meaning of Food in Eat Joy
In this 2019 anthology, Natalie Eve Garrett collects short essays by 31 different writers, each with a recipe linked to it. The essays reveal how foods hold the shape of memories and people and places, nourishment intertwined with the forces that shaped it.
Brown Album: Essays on Exile and Identity by Porochista Khakpour
Porochista Khakpour’s essay collection is a fearless reflection of an immigrant searching for home and for herself.
The Narrative Messiness of Chronic Illness
Memoirs from Paul Kalanithi, Lucy Grealy, Jean-Dominique Bauby, and Porochista Khakpour teach us about turning the story of an ailing body into a work of art.