Love in Exile

The acclaimed Top 10 Sunday Times bestseller on our search for love<BR><BR><BR>'Uncommonly wise and honest. Love in Exile flooded me with a sense of continuity and hope. A masterpiece, from start to finish' - Maggie Nelson<BR><BR>Shon Faye grew up quietly obsessed with the feeling that love was not for her. Not just romantic love: the secret fear of her own unworthiness penetrated every aspect and corner of her life. It was a fear that would erupt in destructive, counterfeit versions of the real love she craved: addictions and short-lived romances that were either euphoric and fantastical, or excruciatingly painful and unhinged, often both. Faye's experience of the world as a trans woman, who grew up visibly queer, exacerbated her fears. But, as she confronted her damaging ideas about love and lovelessness, she came to realize that this sense of exclusion is symptomatic of a much larger problem in our culture.<BR><BR>Love, she argues, is as much a collective question as a personal one. Yet our collective ideals of love have developed in a society which is itself profoundly sick and loveless; in which consumer capitalism sells us ever new, engrossing fantasies of becoming more loved or lovable. In this highly politicized terrain, boundaries are purposefully drawn to keep some in and to keep others out. Those who exist outside them are ignored, denigrated, exiled.<BR><BR>In Love in Exile, Shon Faye shows love is much greater than the narrow ideals we have been taught to crave so desperately that we are willing to bend and break ourselves to fit them. Wise, funny, unsparing, and suffused with a radical clarity, this is a book of and for our times: for seeing and knowing love, in whatever form it takes, is the meaning of life itself.<BR>

The acclaimed Top 10 Sunday Times best-seller on our search for love<BR><BR><BR>'Uncommonly wise and honest. Love in Exile flooded me with a sense of continuity and hope. A masterpiece, from start to finish' - Maggie Nelson<BR><BR>Shon Faye grew up quietly obsessed with the feeling that love was not for her. Not just romantic love: the secret fear of her own unworthiness penetrated every aspect and corner of her life. It was a fear that would erupt in destructive, counterfeit versions of the real love she craved: addictions and short-lived romances that were either euphoric and fantastical, or excruciatingly painful and unhinged, often both. Faye's experience of the world as a trans woman, who grew up visibly queer, exacerbated her fears. But, as she confronted her damaging ideas about love and lovelessness, she came to realize that this sense of exclusion is symptomatic of a much larger problem in our culture.<BR><BR>Love, she argues, is as much a collective question as a personal one. Yet our collective ideals of love have developed in a society which is itself profoundly sick and loveless; in which consumer capitalism sells us ever new, engrossing fantasies of becoming more loved or lovable. In this highly politicized terrain, boundaries are purposefully drawn to keep some in and to keep others out. Those who exist outside them are ignored, denigrated, exiled.<BR><BR>In Love in Exile, Shon Faye shows love is much greater than the narrow ideals we have been taught to crave so desperately that we are willing to bend and break ourselves to fit them. Wise, funny, unsparing, and suffused with a radical clarity, this is a book of and for our times: for seeing and knowing love, in whatever form it takes, is the meaning of life itself.<BR>

In ihrem kraftvollen Buch legt Shon Faye eine fesselnde und weitreichende Analyse vor. Die "Transgender-Frage" liefert eine Bestandsaufnahme zu Themen, die nicht nur das Leben von trans Menschen berühren: von der Bildung im Kindergarten und der Schule über Familie, Wohnen, finanzielle Nöte, Dating, Arbeit, Gesundheitswesen, Gesetzgebung bis hin zur Zugehörigkeit von trans Menschen zur LGBTQ+-Community. Ein bahnbrechendes Werk, das den Beginn eines neuen sozialen Diskurses signalisiert. Für Faye ist die Befreiung von trans Menschen mit dem verbunden, was unsere Gesellschaft ausmacht und was sie sein könnte - sie bietet die Möglichkeit einer gerechteren, freieren, besseren Welt für uns alle.

The instant Sunday Times bestseller, updated with a new introduction <BR><BR>'Few books are as urgent as Shon Faye's debut ... Faye has hope for the future - and maybe so should we' Independent<BR><BR>'Unsparing, important and weighty ... a vitally needed antidote' Observer<BR><BR>'A moving and impressively comprehensive overview of trans life' Vogue<BR><BR>Trans people in Britain today have become a culture war 'issue'. Despite making up less than one per cent of the country's population, they are the subjects of a toxic and increasingly polarized 'debate' which generates reliable controversy for newspapers and talk shows. This media frenzy conceals a simple fact: that we are having the wrong conversation, a conversation in which trans people themselves are reduced to a talking point and denied a meaningful voice.<BR><BR>In this powerful new book, Shon Faye reclaims the idea of the 'transgender issue' to uncover the reality of what it means to be trans in a transphobic society. In doing so, she provides a compelling, wide-ranging analysis of trans lives from youth to old age, exploring work, family, housing, healthcare, the prison system and trans participation in the LGBTQ+ and feminist communities, in contemporary Britain and beyond.<BR><BR>The Transgender Issue is a landmark work that signals the beginning of a new, healthier conversation about trans life. It is a manifesto for change, and a call for justice and solidarity between all marginalized people and minorities. Trans liberation, as Faye sees it, goes to the root of what our society is and what it could be; it offers the possibility of a more just, free and joyful world for all of us.<BR><BR>'Fundamentally not a culture-war book. It operates outside the narrow coverage of trans people in the mainstream, and lays bare the inarguable facts' New Statesman<BR><BR>'Monumental and utterly convincing - crystal clear in its understanding of how the world should be' Judith Butler