Year of Plagues

the long version

Drawing from two cultural perspectives, an acclaimed British-Guyanese writer and award-winning poet combines personal reminiscence and philosophy to reflect on a year of personal and global crisis, as he was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer during the COVID-19 pandemic. 2020. The world around D'Aguiar was shattered by the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, Black Lives Matter protests erupted across the United States, California burned... and D'Aguiar was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer. Here he confronts profound questions about the purpose of pursuing a life of writing and teaching in the face of overwhelming upheavals; the imaginative and artistic strategies a writer can bring to bear as his sense of self and community are severely tested; and the quest for strength and solace necessary to help forge a better future. The resulting memoir is a paean of resistance to despotic authority and life-threatening disease. -- adapted from jacket