Motherhood

Description

A provocative novel about the desire and duty to procreate, from the author of the critically acclaimed How Should A Person Be? 'Confronts the philosophical questions raised by childbearing and womanhood' Sally Rooney Motherhood treats one of the most consequential decisions of early adulthood - whether or not to have children - with the intelligence, wit and originality that have won Sheila Heti international acclaim. Having reached an age when most of her peers are asking themselves when they will become mothers, Heti's narrator considers, with the same urgency, whether she will do so at all. Over the course of several years, under the influence of her partner, body, family, friends, mysticism and chance, she struggles to make a moral and meaningful choice. In a compellingly direct mode that straddles the forms of the novel and the essay, Motherhood raises radical and essential questions about womanhood, parenthood, and how - and for whom - to live. 'Likely to become the defining literary work on the subject' Guardian **A Daily Telegraph, Financial Times, Irish Times, Refinery29, TLS and The White Review Book of the Year **

Sheila Heti is the author of ten books, including the novels Motherhood and How Should a Person Be?, which New York magazine deemed one of the 'New Classics of the twenty-first century' and which was longlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction. She was named one of the 'New Vanguard' by the New York Times book critics, who, along with a dozen other magazines and newspapers, chose Motherhood as a best book of the year. Her novels have been translated into twenty-four languages. She is the former interviews editor of The Believer magazine. She lives in Toronto.

Heti's semi-fiction, like that of writers like Ben Lerner, Rachel Cusk and Teju Cole, among others, is dismantling our notions of what a novel should be . . . If you are an underliner, as I am, your pen may go dry . . . Indeed, Heti always seems to be drawing from a paranormally deep well . . . Funny . . . Cannily employed. * The New York Times * Brave and funny... Heti demonstrates the contradictions between freedom and the tyranny of choice and how impossible it is for anyone to ever make the 'right' decision. * The White Review Books of the Year * In Motherhood, Heti takes on her most controversial and private debate yet - whether or not to have a child. A brilliant, radical, and moving book, it is sure to cause the cultural riot her earlier work has . . . There's a new quality to Heti's writing in Motherhood. The only way I can describe it is tenderness . . . Beautiful . . . Surprising. * The Paris Review * Heti thinks clearly and originally * Times Literary Supplement, **Books of the Year** * Probing, psychologically unafraid, witty... With its mix of autofiction and philosophy, Motherhood is no manifesto but an essential - and often exasperating - exploration of uncertainty and of the art that can be created from it. * Financial Times *