Join acclaimed novelist, essayist, critic and academic Kate Zambreno for the UK launch of two extraordinary works: Book of Mutter and Appendix Project.

Hovering between memoir, essay and poetry, Book of Mutter is an uncategorisable text that draws upon a repertoire of genres to write into and against silence. Written over thirteen years, this haunted and haunting text explores the throes and dead calm of grief as the author comes to terms with their mother’s death. Offering critical reflections on writers and artists like Roland Barthes, Louise Bourgeois, Henry Darger, Peter Handke and others, Book of Mutter meditates on the power of writing, photography and memory to embrace grief in all its painful stages.

Appendix Project, written a year after the initial publication of Book of Mutter, compiles eleven talks and essays on the work of Barthes and Bourgeois, in addition to Marguerite Duras, Bhanu Kapil, Marlene Dumas, Jenny Holzer and many others. Surprising and moving in equal measure, these dazzling critical set pieces are written to and against the experience of Zambreno’s own sleeplessness during the first year of their child’s life.

To celebrate Prototype’s UK edition of these two astounding and accomplished works, Kate will be in conversation with writer Hannah Hutchings-Georgiou to discuss writing about grief. Together, they will explore the overlap between critical and creative thinking, (maternal) care-giving and art-making in their work, and the power of art to hold us through life’s ruptures.