In this moving and revelatory collection, Deborah Levy traces the literary and artistic muses that have shaped her life and work as a writer. From Marguerite Duras to FrancescaWoodman,Ann Quin, and J.G. Ballard — among other figures one feels and relishes the richness of their work, and in turn, the richness of her own. Each essay draws upon Levy’s life in exalting ways, encapsulating the wonderful precision and astonishing depth of her writing, as she seamlessly shifts between and meditates on questions of mortality, language, womanhood, and poetics.
Levy invites the reader into the interiors of her world, sharing with us her most intimate thoughts and experiences, as she traces and measures her life against the backdrop of different literary imaginations; from the little girl born in South Africa to her childhood in Britain, her travels across the world as a young woman, and to being a mother, each page is a beautiful, tender composition of the self.