Recollections of My Nonexistence - Signed Edition

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This memoir is a marvel. Rebecca Solnit writes with the cool, studied sense of a person who has always had to provide a great deal of proof, and makes a compelling case for how issues of representation, visibility, and credibility fit into the epidemic of violence against women. This book filled me with rage and hope in equal measure, and I loved every word. Recommended By Michelle C., Powells.com

"A marvel: a memoir that details her awakening as a feminist, an environmentalist, and a citizen of the world. Every single sentence is exquisite." Maris Kreizman, Vulture

An electric portrait of the artist as a young woman that asks how a writer finds her voice in a society that prefers women to be silent

In Recollections of My Nonexistence, Rebecca Solnit describes her formation as a writer and as a feminist in 1980s San Francisco, in an atmosphere of gender violence on the street and throughout society and the exclusion of women from cultural arenas. She tells of being poor, hopeful, and adrift in the city that became her great teacher; of the small apartment that, when she was nineteen, became the home in which she transformed herself; of how punk rock gave form and voice to her own fury and explosive energy.

Solnit recounts how she came to recognize the epidemic of violence against women around her, the street harassment that unsettled her, the trauma that changed her, and the authority figures who routinely disdained and disbelieved girls and women, including her. Looking back, she sees all these as consequences of the voicelessness that was and still is the ordinary condition of women, and how she contended with that while becoming a writer and a public voice for women's rights.

She explores the forces that liberated her as a person and as a writer — books themselves, the gay men around her who offered other visions of what gender, family, and joy could be, and her eventual arrival in the spacious landscapes and overlooked conflicts of the American West. These influences taught her how to write in the way she has ever since, and gave her a voice that has resonated with and empowered many others.

"Enlightening... a thinking person's book about writing, female identity, and freedom by a powerful and motivating voice for change." Publishers Weekly

"Absorbing... A perceptive, radiant portrait of a writer of indelible consequence." Kirkus (Starred Review)

"One of our foremost thinkers on womanhood explores the journey of her becoming in this deeply personal memoir about her youth in San Francisco. In her searing, sensitive voice, Solnit recalls the epidemic of violence against women... tracing her journey as a writer through her journey to speak out on behalf of women." Esquire

“No writer has weighted the complexities of sustaining hope in our times of readily available despair more thoughtfully and beautifully, nor with greater nuance.” Maria Popova, Brain Pickings

“The kind of rugged, off-road public intellectual American doesn’t produce often enough... she has a rare gift: The ability to turn the act of cognition, of arriving at a coherent point of view, into compelling moral drama.” Dwight Garner, The New York Times Book Review

Rebecca Solnit is the author of more than twenty books, including A Field Guide to Getting Lost, The Faraway Nearby, A Paradise Built in Hell, River of Shadows, and Wanderlust: A History of Walking. She is also the author of Men Explain Things to Me and many essays on feminism, activism and social change, hope, and the climate crisis. A product of the California public education system from kindergarten to graduate school, she is a regular contributor to the Guardian and Lit Hub.