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Book of mutter
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Book of mutter

by Kate Zambreno

This experimental work explores grief and memory following the death of the author's mother, blending elements of memoir, essay and poetry. It employs a fragmented structure to analyse the intersection of family history, photography, art and literature.

Accession 12408 ISBN 9781584351962 Publisher Semiotext(e)
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TAGS
Curated Derived
Culture Death and Burial Emotions Family and Society Literature Philosophy Psychology Social Sciences
CONNECTIONS
No connections
State
on_shelf
True
position_updated_at
2026-06-03 12:39
orientation
vertical
Details

Physical

binding_type
Hard Back
dimensions
none captured
spine_text
none captured

Metadata

Book form
LOCATION HISTORY
M:S4:16 6 Current vertical
1 week ago
M:S4:16 5 vertical
3 weeks, 1 day ago
Book Location
Updated 1 week ago
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Frozen copy of Vernon's record from the last sync. Fields tagged → flow back into the Pulse record.

Last synced 2026-05-21 00:57 (2 weeks, 6 days ago)

Identity

name→ title
Book of mutter
vernon_id
19534
accession_no→ accession_number
12408
vernon_slug
book-of-mutter-kate-zambreno

Drives Pulse state

curr_loc_status→ on_shelf
On Shelf
location_name
Zone S3/Level 2 (Mezzanine)/Phrontisterion/MONA
location_reason
On Shelf
isbn_issn→ isbn (when valid)
9781584351962

Descriptive

production_date
2017
object_type
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object_status
Accessioned
brief_description
Composed over thirteen years, Kate Zambreno's Book of Mutter is a tender and disquieting meditation on the ability of writing, photography, and memory to embrace shadows while in the throes—and dead calm—of grief. Book of Mutter is both primal and sculpted, shaped by the author's searching, indexical impulse to inventory family apocrypha in the wake of her mother's death. The text spirals out into a fractured anatomy of melancholy that includes critical reflections on the likes of Roland Barthes, Louise Bourgeois, Henry Darger, Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, Peter Handke, and others. Zambreno has modeled the book's formless form on Bourgeois's Cells sculptures—at once channeling the volatility of autobiography, pain, and childhood, yet hemmed by a solemn sense of entering ritualistic or sacred space. -- Publisher.

Subjects & people

authors→ author (initial fill only)
Kate Zambreno
tags→ tags
Social psychology, Psychology, Memory, Thought and thinking, Social sciences, Civilisation, Sociology, American literature, United States -- Literatures, Death, Life, Families, Social institutions, Interpersonal relations, Grief, Bereavement, Parent and child, Mother and child, Memory in art, Parents
subject_people
Henry Darger (b.1892, d.1973), Louise Bourgeois (b.1911, d.2010), Roland Barthes (French, b.1915, d.1980)
subject_objects
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Cover image

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Topics and Themes