Sophia

Abstract

My short novel is about a female protagonist who is shown in a braided narrative, meaning that it goes back and forth between the past and present. My characters find subtle looks at enlightenment, the shimmering presence of beauty, and times of connecting to a new sense of happiness. In my fiction I use minimalist realism that explores the limits of what can be known: in the self, others, and the world. I’m interested in what is manifest but not said, and the inner/outer distinction. There is much about how illness is handled, and the private nature of that. I think there is a sense of the everyday, and an absence of exposition. I think that if my novel is successful at all, it will be because I have taken what can be known or said with much restraint to portray the world with a simple (though not simplistic) worldview and this notion also defines my realism and minimalism as a whole.