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Writing into the Wound: Understanding trauma, truth, and language
Writing into the Wound: Understanding trauma, truth, and language
Writing into the Wound: Understanding trauma, truth, and language
Audiobook1 hour

Writing into the Wound: Understanding trauma, truth, and language

By Scribd Originals

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About this audiobook

“Roxane Gay seems to have a knack for fearlessly telling the truth.” —The New York Times

From the bestselling author of Hunger and Bad Feminist, an unforgettable, deeply personal look at how trauma has shaped her life and work—and what all of us need to do to come to grips with the collective suffering of the past year.

Bestselling author and cultural icon Roxane Gay is no stranger to trauma. As a young girl, she was the victim of a horrifying act of violence that changed her life and would strongly influence her career as a writer. In her 2017 memoir Hunger, she addressed that trauma head-on, writing with bracing honesty about her body and the ways that food can be used both to bury pain and make oneself disappear. The response to Hunger by some critics who seemed to take perverse pleasure in highlighting Gay’s vulnerabilities was itself a fresh wound. By exploring trauma publicly, Gay suffered more of it.

In her Scribd Original Writing into the Wound, Gay not only talks openly about trauma in her personal life—from her fraught time as an undergraduate at Yale to the stress of returning there as a visiting professor to the fallout from Hunger—but also about the collective trauma we’ve experienced this past year. COVID-19, racial and economic inequality, political strife, imminent environmental disaster, and more: Gay catalogs it all with her trademark candor and authority. To make sense of our pain, she suggests, we need to explore it fully, even as we’re still in the midst of it. Just as she writes her way through her own traumas and coaches her students to do the same, she urges us to take a long, hard look at the wounds we all share: “The world as we knew it has broken wide open. There is a before and an after, and the world will never again be what it once was. That sounds terrifying, but it is an opportunity.”

“To change the world, we need to face what has become of it,” she writes. “To heal from a trauma, we need to understand the extent of it.” Full of wisdom and rage and grace, Writing into the Wound is a remarkable consideration of where we are, and where we need to go, by one of the finest authors and cultural critics of her generation.

LanguageEnglish
PublisherScribd Originals
Release dateFeb 11, 2021
ISBN9781094400037

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Reviews for Writing into the Wound

4.5/5

1,034 ratings63 reviews

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  • 4/5
    A fantastic perspective on the art and craft of writing about one’s personal trauma as well as the trauma of others. I greatly appreciated this perspective on an area of writing I have yet to try.
  • 5/5
    what a great read! enjoyed her insight very much. On to her other writings as well!
  • 5/5
    Very insightful and informative to read. I really recommend it
  • 4/5
    Delightful book. As a therapist, I was hoping for tools and activities to write about trauma. This was not it, and she explained specifically that when she was doing her writing group, she tried to stay away and not cater to therapists to use this as some sort of intervention. Nonetheless, it was a beautiful piece, highlighting her struggle and journey to process through difficult issues.
  • 3/5
    A memoir of the world, written to mitigate the pain, for in sharing people find solace
  • 5/5
    Deep and insightful. Gay speaks straight into the heart of this dismorphic existence.
  • 5/5
    The first book I listened to on Scribd. Would recommend listening to this after you've read some of Gay's other work. Although directly getting into this is fine too! Loved the narration. Loved the book!
  • 5/5
    That was fantastic! I’ve heard of Roxanne Gay before, but never tried her writing. But after listening to this book, I’ll be sure to learn more about the author and her work
  • 5/5
    Excellent and straight to the purpose of the book. I’m person and professionally leaning towards he author way of being with the landscape of trauma.
  • 4/5
    Amazing! A good intro to her writing. The part about the pandemic can come off very privilege but that’s her reality.
  • 3/5
    It was interesting but it's from the point of view of someone in a privileged position.
  • 4/5
    I feel so sorry for all what the author has endured. Her journey chattered my heart and I think that she still needs to recover cz her wounds aren't healed yet
  • 5/5
    Clear-eyed, moving, brave, and beautiful, this is a powerful short read.
  • 5/5
    As an avid reader and aspiring writer I enjoyed this essay on writing about the most difficult topics. Love the idea of Scribd originals!