After a noisy upbringing as one of six children, and adulthood as a vocal feminist and mother, Sara Maitland began to crave silence. Over the past five years, she has spent periods of silence in the Sinai desert, the Australian bush, and the Isle of Skye. She interweaves these experiences with the history of silence through fairy-tale and myth, Western and Eastern religious traditions, the Enlightenment and psychoanalysis, up to the ambivalence towards silence in contemporary society. Maitland has built a hermitage on an isolated Scottish moor, and the book culminates powerfully with her experiences of silence in this new home.
- ISBN10 1847081010
- ISBN13 9781847081018
- Publish Date 3 August 2009 (first published 1 November 2008)
- Publish Status Out of Print
- Out of Print 6 July 2009
- Publish Country GB
- Imprint Granta Books
- Format Paperback (B-Format (198x129 mm))
- Pages 320
- Language English