From the Back Cover
In a war-torn village in Eastern Europe, an American photographer captures a heart-stopping image: a young girl flying toward the lens, fleeing a fiery explosion that has engulfed her home and family. The image, instantly iconic, garners acclaim and prizes--and, in the United States, becomes a subject of obsession for one writer, the photographer's best friend, who has suffered a devastating tragedy of her own.
In a bid to save the writer from a spiraling depression, her filmmaker husband enlists a group of friends--including a fearless bisexual poet, an ingenuous performance artist, the writer's playwright brother, and her painter ex-husband--to rescue the unknown girl and bring her to the United States. And yet, as their plot unfolds, everything we know comes into question: What does the writer really want? Who is controlling the action? And what will happen when these two worlds--East and West, real and virtual--collide?
A fierce, provocative, and deeply affecting novel exploring the often violent borders between war and sex, love and art,
The Small Backs of Children firmly places Lidia Yuknavitch in the vanguard of contemporary American writing.
Yuknavitch, Lidia: -
Lidia Yuknavitch is the author of the National Bestselling novel The Small Backs of Children, winner of the 2016 Oregon Book Award's Ken Kesey Award for Fiction as well as the Reader's Choice Award, the novel Dora: A Headcase, and three books of short stories. Her widely acclaimed memoir The Chronology of Water was a finalist for a PEN Center USA award for creative nonfiction and winner of a PNBA Award and the Oregon Book Award Reader's Choice. She founded the workshop series Corporeal Writing in Portland Oregon, where she also teaches Women's Studies, Film Studies, Writing, and Literature. She received her doctorate in Literature from the University of Oregon. She lives in Oregon with her husband Andy Mingo and their renaissance man son, Miles. She is a very good swimmer.
