Girls that Never Die

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What to expect

Bloomsbury presents Girls that Never Die written and read by Safia Elhillo.

Incredibly moving ... Every single poem is stellar' Roxane Gay, author of Difficult Women and Hunger
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In Girls That Never Die, award-winning poet Safia Elhillo reinvents the epic to explore Muslim girlhood and shame, the dangers of being a woman, and the myriad violences enacted and imagined against women’s bodies. Drawing from her own life and family histories, as well as cultural myths and news stories about honor killings and genital mutilation, she interlaces the everyday traumas of growing up a girl under patriarchy with magical realist imaginings of rebellion, autonomy, and power.

Elhillo writes a new world: women escape their stonings by birds that carry the rocks away; slain girls grow into two, like the hydra of lore, sprouting too numerous to ever be eradicated; circles of women are deemed holy, protected. Ultimately, Girls That Never Die is about wrestling ourselves from the threats of violence that constrain our lives, and instead looking to freedom and questioning:

[what if i will not die]

[what will govern me then]
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'Elhillo's is a voice that walks into the future' Ilya Kaminsky
'Brilliant. And fierce' Aracelis Girmay
'An astonishment' Tracy K. Smith

Critics Review

Fearless ... has the makings of a breakthrough
LOS ANGELES TIMES
Mixing tenderness and profanity, Elhillo challenges man-made taxonomies, hierarchies and customs – rank and resilient, the book fearlessly illuminates dark contemporary places
GUARDIAN
It’s enlightening and packs a serious emotional punch. If you think poetry's not for you, let Elhillo change your mind
STYLIST
A fantastically imaginative, powerful and poignant exploration of Muslim girlhood ... A superb book, certain to be one of the year’s standout collections
IRISH TIMES
Elhillo’s poems dig deep into how shame is passed down generations of women ... With these conversations comes power. And the title of Elhillo’s new book sings of the autonomy she imagines for her girls
NPR
Rebellion, liberation, multitudes
MS MAGAZINE
Girls That Never Die is an incredibly moving, and well-structured collection of poetry about being a Muslim girl, about shame, about the silent hurts women carry, about the pressures of cultural expectations, about dangerous silences. The writing here is incisive and intimate and eloquent. Truly, a stunning collection of poems. I particularly appreciated the range of forms across the poems and the structure of the book as a whole. Many of the poems end in ways that will leave you gasping. Loved this book. Every single poem is stellar, no skips as the kids say
ROXANE GAY
When I open a new book by Safia Elhillo, I know there will be fearlessness and beauty. There will be a voice that contains multitudes and yet is original and memorable in its daring. There is always lyricism and nuance, and memorable speech that knows how poetry opposes history. Indeed, Girls That Never Die is a book that gives us courage, despite all the despairing records of history. How does Elhillo do this? Perhaps by letting these pages be the space where witness and a new kind of mythology meet. And this meeting gives us strength. Why? Because there is in these poems an endlessly compelling voice that is unafraid to be vulnerable in order to tell the truth, a voice that walks against the current, walks between cultures, between languages, bridging them with honesty. Elhillo’s is a voice that walks into the future
ILYA KAMINSKY, author of Dancing in Odessa and Deaf Republic
Safia Elhillo traces the ongoing devastations of patriarchy while simultaneously making a refuge out of language, kinship, and sound. Electric, violet, plural with girls, this work pulses with memory and refusal, awakening language with its lucid imagination. Girls That Never Die is a book of resuscitations. Brilliant. And fierce
ARACELIS GIRMAY, author of The Black Maria
I am rapt, finding here the hurt and the heft of girlhood. All the old silences, all the unuttered shames are ruptured, tended to, and - finally - named. Elhillo is a poet of wisdom, rigor, and vindicating care. Girls That Never Die is an astonishment
TRACY K. SMITH, author of Ordinary Light and Wade in the Water
An impressive book ... with a fluency and fluidity that makes the reading pleasurable even as it dismays and disturbs
BUZZ MAGAZINE

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