'A profound book about the intrication of literature and life, about the modest, miraculous ways art helps us to live' Garth Greenwell
In her fiction, Claire Messud 'has specialized in creating unusual female characters with ferocious, imaginative inner lives' (Ruth Franklin, New York Times Magazine). Kant's Little Prussian Head and Other Reasons Why I Write opens a window on Messud's own life: a peripatetic upbringing; a warm, complicated family; and, throughout it all, her devotion to art and literature.
In twenty-nine intimate, brilliant and funny essays, Messud reflects on a childhood move from her Connecticut home to Australia; the complex relationship between her modern Canadian mother and a fiercely single French Catholic aunt; and a trip to Beirut, where her pied-noir father had once lived, while he was dying. She meditates on contemporary classics from Kazuo Ishiguro, Teju Cole, Rachel Cusk and Valeria Luiselli; examines three facets of Albert Camus and The Stranger; and tours her favorite paintings at Boston's Museum of Fine Arts. In the luminous title essay, she explores her drive to write, born of the magic of sharing language and the transformative powers of 'a single successful sentence'.
Together, these essays show the inner workings of a dazzling literary mind. Crafting a vivid portrait of a life in celebration of the power of literature, Messud proves once again 'an absolute master storyteller' (Rebecca Carroll, Los Angeles Times).
'If Claire Messud's mind was a night sky, these essays chart the stars and constellations visible there . . . illuminating, scintillating, always wise' Alexander Chee, author of How to Write an Autobiographical novel

Claire Messud is a recipient of Guggenheim and Radcliffe Fellowships and the Strauss Living Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. The author of five other works of fiction including, most recently, The Burning Girl, she lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts, with her family.