Night Philosophy

Book excerpt: Night Philosophy is collected around the figure of the child, the figure of the child not just as a little person under the tutelage of adults, but also the submerged one, who knows, who is without power, who doesn't matter. The book proposes a minor politics that disperses all concentrations of power. Fanny Howe chronicles the weak and persistent, those who never assimilate at the cost of having another group to dominate. She explores the dynamics of the child as victim in a desensitized era, when transgression is the zeitgeist and the victim–perpetrator model controls citizens. This book is a prism through which Earth's ancient songs and tales are distilled; restored to light. It is also a manual for surviving evil. The most important thing for you to understand is that Fanny Howe is a rebel, down to the cellular level. She walks with the prophets and with the unborn. There is no writer like her. – Ariana Reines Fanny Howe is simply one of the best and most innovative writers alive. – Dawn Lundy Martin Night Philosophy is sharp and precise. All the time, like a powerful undercurrent, a voltage charger, or Cordelia speaking, language itself exerts its primacy; it insists on remaining true not just to human hope, human feeling, or the questing spirit, but to some idea of a power beyond ourselves. – Colm Tóibín History and images of what we do to each other are illuminated, and then made to sing lurid, fluid truth. – Yusef Komunyakaa Fanny Howe is a hallowed voice of the violent and brutal twentieth century. A sacred idiot, a wise friend who passes a bottle of warmth through the icy night, who fishes for what haunts the depths. – Kazim Ali