The World Was Whole
A$29.95
Shortlisted for the 2020 NSW Premier's Literary Award for Non-fiction; longlisted for the 2019 Stella Prize and 2020 Nib Award for research
Our bodies and homes are our shelters, each one intimately a part of the other. But what about those who feel anxious, uncomfortable, unsettled? In The World Was Whole, Fiona Wright examines how we inhabit and remember the familiar spaces of our homes and suburbs, as we move through them and away from, devoting ourselves to the routines and rituals that make up our lives.
These affectingly personal essays consider how all-consuming the engagement with the ordinary can be, and how even small encounters and interactions can illuminate our lives. They are poetic and observant, and often funny, animated by curiosity and candour. Beneath them all lies the experience of chronic illness and its treatment, and the consideration of how this can reshape and reorder our assumptions about the world and our place within it.