Our Winter Recommendation Amnion by Stephanie Sy-Quia is a contemporary lyric epic, journeying from the Philippines to Libya, through France, Spain, and the UK. This debut collection of poems questions keenly and urgently the roots of migration and colonialism, charting what it means to grow up in a family divided by geography, history and language. Managing the consequences of empire, familial discord, personal mythologies and contemporary issues of class and race, these narratives of history, both personal and public, are disseminated through Stephanie's patient and ever-expanding rhetoric. Lyrically charged, this book-length poem weaves memoir, essay and poetics with the eye of an archivist. Throughout, the lyric 'I' is questioned through the very fragments that come to represent it. Amnion feeds into the history of Homeric, epic verse with ambitious scope, grace and erudition, promising to be one of the most significant texts on contemporary personhood.
Stephanie Sy-Quia was born in 1995 in California and now lives in London. She studied English at Oxford and currently works as a freelance journalist. Her writing has appeared in the FT Weekend, the TLS, the Economist, the Spectator and TANK magazine, and has twice been shortlisted for the FT Bodley Head Essay prize.
Stephanie Sy-Quia was born in 1995 in California and now lives in London. She studied English at Oxford and currently works as a freelance journalist. Her writing has appeared in the FT Weekend, the TLS, the Economist, the Spectator and TANK magazine, and has twice been shortlisted for the FT Bodley Head Essay prize.