November 7, 2023

Tone

 


Sofia's latest book is now available from Columbia University Press. This is an unusual collaboration with her friend Kate Zambreno, author of Green Girl and Drift, among many others. It is written in a choral first-person plural voice: the Committee to Investigate Atmosphere. The book had its genesis in their email conversations, as they were trying to nail down where tone exists in literature and how it might be defined. Sofia and Kate are both extraordinarily widely read, and one of the pleasures of the book is the vast array of writers they reference, including Nella Larsen, W. G. Sebald, Hiroko Oyamada, Bhanu Kapil, Renee Gladman, and Franz Kafka. The book itself, partly because of its unique voice, creates its own tone, at once erudite and chatty, pensive and expansive.