{"product_id":"speaking-and-being-how-language-binds-and-frees-us","title":"Speaking and Being: How Language Binds and Frees Us","description":"Review\n\nI can't stop talking about this book. There is so much here that is so relevant to our fight for equality, and I really appreciated her arguments about language, gender and race. Really made me think -- Jamie Klingler, co-founder #ReclaimTheseStreets\n\nFrom the very first lines of Speaking and Being, Kübra Gümüsay shows herself to be a master storyteller. Her stories are about language - the ways in which it shapes the very essence of our being, and its power to define how we perceive others and how we are perceived. It is a book at oncevigorous and generous, pleasurable and galvanising. -- Sophie Hughes, International Booker Prize-shortlisted translator\n\nWhat a gem. This book reminded me that reading a book means spending time with the intimate thoughts of an author, and so we typically enjoy books by authors whose company we imagine enjoying. Kübra Gümüsay makes you look at the world, and yourself, afresh. Read it anytime, but especially read it if you're feeling alone and\/or alienated, or if you're at a loss for language to describe the world and its complex sociocultural and psychological existence. Her wisdom inspires you to 'speak and be'. -- Minna Salami, author of 'Sensuous Knowledge: A Black Feminist Approach for Everyone'\n\nSpeaking and Being is as important a book as its title suggests. With an impressive array of trenchant examples, it reminds us how language shapes our world views and encourages us to question and alter them for the better. Kübra Gümüsay's is a rare voice that combines challenge and compassion in equal measure, and her message is all the more compelling for it. -- Chris Young, Head of the School of Arts and Humanities, University of Cambridge\n\nThought-provoking ... well researched, grounded in and citing the conversations and contexts it emerges out of. ... Timely and important -- Annie Rutherford ― Goethe Institute Blog\n\nAn act of liberation - and a clever essay of literary quality and political strength. ― NZZ am Sonntag\n\nPrecise, clever and extremely readable ... an important, thought-provoking commentary. Gümüsay's passionate plea for a new, free language and a new, free way of thinking questions the status quo. ― Aachener Nachrichten\n\nA polemical plea for a new use of language in public discourse. A polemic, however, that counteracts the battle cries with a personal tone and an inviting gesture to start a dialogue. ― Deutschlandfunk\n\nA reckoning with our linguistic habits ― Zeit\n\nProduct Description\n\nA SPECTATOR BOOK OF THE YEAR\n\n'I can't stop talking about this book'\nJamie Klingler, co-founder #ReclaimTheseStreets\n\n'What a gem. ... Makes you look at the world, and yourself, afresh.'\nMinna Salami, author of Sensuous Knowledge: A Black Feminist Approach for Everyone\n\n'A generous combination of passion and practicality that is not easily resisted. A rare book that might actually change our minds'\nDaniel Hahn OBE\n\n'A book at once vigorous and generous, pleasurable and galvanising'\nSophie Hughes, International Booker Prize-shortlisted translator\n\nWhat does it really mean to speak freely? A wise, beautifully written book that explores the way language shapes our lives and how we see the world - and what happens when we learn new words, and new ways of speaking to each other.\n\nLanguage opens up our world, and in the same instant, limits it. What does it mean to exist in a language that was never meant for you to speak? Why are we missing certain words? How can we talk about our communal problems without fuelling them? What does it actually mean to speak freely?\n\nAs a writer and activist fighting for equality, Kübra Gümüsay has been thinking about these questions for many years. In this book she explores how language shapes our thinking and determines our politics. She shows how people become invisible as individuals when they are always seen as part of a group, and the way those in the minority often have to expend energy cleaning up the messy thinking of others. But she also points to how we","brand":"smeikalbooks","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":40236254920789,"sku":"9781788168496N","price":17.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/2481\/5790\/products\/934440a7-5cb5-4bd1-b783-7a88d8a0eeed.jpg?v=1660311658","url":"https:\/\/smeikalbooks.co.uk\/en-us\/products\/speaking-and-being-how-language-binds-and-frees-us","provider":"smeikalbooks","version":"1.0","type":"link"}