How We Desire

• A genre-busting, thoughtful and highly readable exploration of sexuality and identity by one of Germany’s most admired writers • In this extended personal essay, Emcke draws on her own experiences to guide readers to consider how we desire, and how that affects what it means to be a person • Emcke turns her incisive reporter’s eye to her own experiences of desire and coming of age, weaving a story that is filled with evocative anecdotes and astute observations about identity, sexuality and love • Just as How We Desire attempts to resist the cultural categories and limitations put upon human desire, this broad and nuanced essay defies typical genre categories • Emcke worked as a war correspondent for Der Spiegel for fifteen years. She reported from war and crisis zones including the Gaza Strip, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq • Emcke’s reportage is critically acclaimed in Germany, where she has previously published a number of books. In 2016 she received the German Book Trade’s Peace Prize, an award previously won by Svetlana Alexievich, Susan Sontag and Margaret Atwood • How We Desire is the first of Emcke’s books to be translated into English • Will appeal to fans of Maggie Nelson’s The Argonauts, Emily Witt’s Future Sex, Eula Biss’ On Immunity, and Rebecca Solnit’s Men Explain Things To Me