Where Things Touch
CBC Books | | Posted: February 18, 2020 4:23 PM | Last Updated: December 1, 2020
Bahar Orang
Part lyric essay, part prose poetry, Where Things Touch grapples with the manifold meanings and possibilities of beauty.
Drawing on her experiences as a physician-in-training, Orang considers clinical encounters and how they relate to the concept and very idea of beauty. Such considerations lead her to questions about intimacy, queerness, home, memory, love, and other aspects of human existence. Throughout, beauty is ultimately imagined as something inextricably tied to care: the care of lovers, of patients, of art and literature, and the various non-human worlds that surround us.
Eloquent and meditative in its approach, beauty, here, beyond base expectations of frivolity and superficiality, is conceived of as a thing to recover. Where Things Touch is an exploration of an essential human pleasure, a necessary freedom by which to challenge what we know of ourselves and the world we inhabit. (From Book*Hug)
Orang is a writer and physician-in-training. Her writing has appeared in Arts Medica, Hamilton Arts & Letters and Guts. Where Things Touch is her first book.
- 40 works of Canadian nonfiction to watch for in spring 2020
- Bahar Orang's Where Things Touch is a thoughtful exploration of beauty in a fast-paced world
- The best Canadian nonfiction of 2020