Description

In 1981, Rebecca Solnit rented a studio apartment in San Francisco, her home for the next twenty-five years. There she began the process of forging a voice in a society that preferred women to be silent. Liberated by West Coast activism, growing gay pride and punk rock, she broke through oppression and over time transformed into a writer and activist who speaks for the marginalised – galvanised to use her own voice for change.

Recollections of My Non-Existence is the landmark memoir from a voice of a generation, and a rally cry for generations to come.

Publisher Review

Solnit taught me that activism is poetic. Her prose as clear and galvanising as it is beautiful. In ‘Recollections of my Non-Existence’ she takes us through the dreams and dark corners of her life. Each passage a revelation, both idiosyncratic and universal, as she examines the everyday violence of inhabiting a female body, and the everyday erasure that occurs in our society. Unflinching she lights the way, holding up her experience, her insight, that others might find her, and find hope — Florence Welch Spare, yet lyrical, Solnit’s memoir is a powerful portrait of the artist as a young woman. She stumbles, she suffers, she wanders and deviates. She works and works some more. Somehow she arrives at a singular voice that is heard by millions, including the mansplainers she so precisely named. Solnit’s voice is ‘audible, credible, and consequential’. It is also brilliant and shapes the ways in which women today see, all the while enabling them to speak out — Lisa Appignanesi A writer of startling freshness and precision * New York Times * Solnit is a resource […] of hope and guidance in turbulent times * Newsweek * Rebecca Solnit’s opposition to injustice in its many forms, and her relentless inquiry as a writer and reporter into a great range of issues – racial injustice, nuclear weapons, indigenous rights, male hegemony- have defined the outrage and politics of much of her generation. In Recollections of My Nonexistence she draws all these potent metaphors for inequity together into a moral stance that transcends the particulars of all her topics. This is a remarkable book – smart, brave, edgy, insightful, and authentic — Barry Lopez Solnit argues… with electric clarity… and while she embraces complexity, she never loses her sharpness of focus. — Annie McDermott * Times Literary Supplement *