What We Lose | Zinzi Clemmons

What We Lose

Extended Synopsis

In What We Lose, Zinzi Clemmons delivers a stunning and deeply felt meditation on race, sex, family, and country. Raised in Pennsylvania, Thandi views the world of her mother's childhood in Johannesburg as both impossibly distant and ever-present. Caught between being black and white, American and not, she constantly feels like an outsider. As her mother succumbs to cancer, Thandi's world shatters, sending her on a desperate search for an anchor in a dislocated reality.

Through arresting and unsettling prose, Thandi's life unfolds in exquisite, emotional vignettes. Readers follow her journey from the devastating loss of the person who most profoundly shaped her existence to her own complex encounters with romance and unexpected motherhood. This elegiac distillation is at once intellectual and visceral, offering a brilliant portrayal of what it means to choose to live after profound loss, solidifying Clemmons as a virtuosic new voice in contemporary fiction.

Reader Targeting

• Readers of contemporary literary fiction focusing on the African diaspora and biracial identity.
• Those seeking profound, character-driven narratives exploring grief, loss, and motherhood.
• Fans of experimental fiction that utilizes visual elements like charts and vignettes to convey deep psychological states.

About the Author

Zinzi Clemmons is a highly acclaimed author whose writing explores the intersections of identity, race, and grief. Her rare, haunting power as a storyteller has earned her widespread recognition across the literary community.

Accolades & Awards

A National Book Foundation 5 Under 35 Honoree, NBCC John Leonard First Book Prize Finalist, and Aspen Words Literary Prize Finalist. Vogue hailed it as "The debut novel of the year," while The New Yorker praised it as "an examination of haunting." Named a Best Book of the Year by NPR, Elle, Esquire, Buzzfeed, and numerous other prestigious outlets.

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