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Pathemata

Or, The Story of My Mouth
By Maggie Nelson
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Brief Description
A profound and deeply personal exploration of pain, the body, and loss by the beloved author of Bluets and The Argonauts. It's not the dream that matters, it's the telling of the dream - the words you choose, the risks you take in externalising your mind.... Read More
Format: Paperback / softback
$3000
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A profound and deeply personal exploration of pain, the body, and loss by the beloved author of Bluets and The Argonauts.

It's not the dream that matters, it's the telling of the dream - the words you choose, the risks you take in externalising your mind.

This is a dreamlike portrait of a body in struggle to connect with itself and others. As the narrator contends with chronic pain, and with a pandemic raging in the background, she sets out to examine the literal and symbolic role of the mouth in the life of a writer.

Merging dreams and dailies, Pathemata recounts the narrator's tragicomic search to alleviate her suffering, a search that eventually becomes a reckoning with various forms of loss - the loss of intimacy, the loss of her father, and the loss of a pivotal friend and mentor. In exacting, distilled prose, her account blurs the lines between embodied, unconscious, and everyday life.

Book Details

INFORMATION

ISBN: 9781529951363

Publisher: Vintage Publishing

Format: Paperback / softback

Date Published: 14 May 2026

Country: United Kingdom

Imprint: Vintage

Audience: General / adult, Tertiary education, Professional and scholarly

DIMENSIONS

Spine width: 7.0mm

Width: 130.0mm

Height: 197.0mm

Weight: 68g

Pages: 80

Collections

Biography & Memoir Education & Reference Grief & Loss Health & Wellness Maggie Nelson Musicians, Movie Stars & Creative Biographies Non-Fiction Penguin Books Self-Help & Personal Development

About the Author

Maggie Nelson is the author of several books of prose and poetry including The Red Parts, Bluets, the National Book Critics Circle Award-winner The Argonauts, On Freedom, Like Love and, most recently, Pathemata. She teaches at the University of Southern California and lives in Los Angeles.

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