Join us for an evening with bestselling author of _The Transgender Issue_, Shon Faye, as she discusses her latest book, _Love In Exile._ Hailed as 'a book for lovers in this era', _Love in Exile_ offers a profound reflection on love, identity, and belonging. This is a unique opportunity to hear from one of the most insightful voices of our time!
Shon Faye grew up quietly obsessed with the feeling that love was not for her. Not just romantic love: the secret fear of her own unworthiness penetrated every aspect and corner of her life. It was a fear that would erupt in destructive, counterfeit versions of the real love she craved: addictions and short-lived romances that were either euphoric and fantastical, or excruciatingly painful and unhinged, often both. Faye's experience of the world as a trans woman, who grew up visibly queer, exacerbated her fears. But, as she confronted her damaging ideas about love and lovelessness, she came to realize that this sense of exclusion is symptomatic of a much larger problem in our culture.
Love, she argues, is as much a collective question as a personal one. Yet our collective ideals of love have developed in a society which is itself profoundly sick and loveless; in which consumer capitalism sells us ever new, engrossing fantasies of becoming more loved or lovable. In this highly politicized terrain, boundaries are purposefully drawn to keep some in and to keep others out. Those who exist outside them are ignored, denigrated, exiled.
In _Love in Exile_, Shon Faye shows love is much greater than the narrow ideals we have been taught to crave so desperately that we are willing to bend and break ourselves to fit them. Wise, funny, unsparing, and suffused with a radical clarity, this is a book of and for our times: for seeing and knowing love, in whatever form it takes, is the meaning of life itself.
Shon Faye is author of the acclaimed bestseller _The Transgender Issue_. Her work has been published in, among others, the _Guardian_, _Independent_, _British Vogue_ and _VICE_. She writes an advice column, Dear Shon, for Vogue.com. Born in Bristol, she now lives in London.