***Online event - Zoom link will be sent to you on the day of the event***
Cliterature, the Vagina Museum's book club, offers you a generous and satisfying fingering through the feminist pages. We’ll include a mixture of fiction, non-fiction, essays and poetry. Everyone is welcome. Our book club is led by former trustee, Niharika Jain.
About the book:
THE PHENOMENAL KOREAN BESTSELLER
TRANSLATED BY INTERNATIONAL BOOKER SHORTLISTEE ANTON HUR
'Will strike a chord with anyone who feels that their public life is at odds with how they really feel inside.' - Red
PSYCHIATRIST: So how can I help you?
ME: I don't know, I'm – what's the word – depressed? Do I have to go into detail?
Baek Sehee is a successful young social media director at a publishing house when she begins seeing a psychiatrist about her – what to call it? – depression? She feels persistently low, anxious, endlessly self-doubting, but also highly judgemental of others. She hides her feelings well at work and with friends; adept at performing the calmness, even ease, her lifestyle demands. The effort is exhausting, overwhelming, and keeps her from forming deep relationships. This can't be normal.
But if she's so hopeless, why can she always summon a desire for her favourite street food, the hot, spicy rice cake, tteokbokki? Is this just what life is like?
Recording her dialogues with her psychiatrist over a 12-week period, Baek begins to disentangle the feedback loops, knee-jerk reactions and harmful behaviours that keep her locked in a cycle of self-abuse. Part memoir, part self-help book, I Want to Die but I Want to Eat Tteokbokki is a book to keep close and to reach for in times of darkness.
About the author:
Born in 1990, Baek Sehee studied creative writing in university before working for five years at a publishing house. For ten years, she received psychiatric treatment for dysthymia (persistent mild depression), which became the subject of her essays, and then I Want to Die but I Want to Eat Tteokbokki, books one and two. Her favorite food is tteokbokki, and she lives with her rescue dog Jaram.
How to get the book:
If you can, try to get your hands on a copy via your local independent bookshop or library as a physical book, e-book or audiobook.
As this is a participatory event by nature, not a performance, anyone who doesn't engage - which can via audio, text, or any method accessible to you - will be automatically removed to ensure safety of all participants. Don’t worry if you’ve not finished the book in time for the session, having read some or most of it will help you take part in our discussion.
Live transcription will be enabled on Zoom for all our events. If you need a transcript after the event, please email us at info@vaginamuseum.co.uk to get a copy.
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