Notes to Self

THE EXTRAORDINARY #1 BESTSELLER

'Fiercely feminist, fascinating. I have recommended this to several people. And I'm doing the same here' Sunday Times

'Do not read this book in public: it will make you cry' Anne Enright

'I am afraid of being the disruptive woman. And of not being disruptive enough. I am afraid. But I am doing it anyway.'

In this dazzling debut, Emilie Pine speaks to the business of living as a woman in the 21st century - its extraordinary pain and its extraordinary joy. Courageous, humane and uncompromising, she writes with radical honesty on birth and death, on the grief of infertility, on caring for her alcoholic father, on taboos around female bodies and female pain, on sexual violence and violence against the self. Devastatingly poignant and profoundly wise - and joyful against the odds - Notes to Self offers a portrait not just of its author but of a whole generation.

'Unsparing, formidable, raw. The kind of book you want to give everyone' Irish Times

'Complex, accessible, thoughtful... You will love these essays' Pandora Sykes, The High Low

'Every line pulses with the pain and joy and complexity of an extraordinary life' Mark O'Connell

RUTH & PEN, EMILIE PINE'S FIRST NOVEL, IS OUT ON THE 5TH OF MAY 2022

Emilie Pine is Professor of Modern Drama at University College Dublin, Ireland. She has published widely as an academic and critic. Her first collection of personal essays Notes to Self won the Butler Literary Award, the Sunday Independent Newcomer of the Year Award, and Book of the Year 2018 at the Irish Book Awards. Ruth & Pen is her first novel.