Love in Exile launch with Shon Faye and Vanessa Kisuule

Shon Faye is the Bristol born author of the acclaimed bestseller The Transgender Issue. Vanessa Kisuule is a writer, performer and facilitator based in Bristol. She wrote and presented The Poetry Detective for BBC Radio 4 and has two collections with Burning Eye Books.

‘We ache for love, but love eludes us. Out of this crisis comes so much of what it means to be human.’ Shon Faye grew up quietly obsessed with the feeling that love was not for her. Not just romantic love: the secret fear of her own unworthiness penetrated every aspect and corner of her life. It was a fear that would erupt in destructive, counterfeit versions of the real love she craved: addictions and short-lived romances that were either euphoric and fantastical, or excruciatingly painful and unhinged, often both.

Faye’s experience of the world as a trans woman, who grew up visibly queer, exacerbated her fears. But, as she confronted her damaging ideas about love and lovelessness, she came to realise that this sense of exclusion is symptomatic of a much larger problem in our culture. In Love in Exile, Faye shows love is much greater than the narrow ideals we have been taught to crave so desperately that we are willing to bend and break ourselves to fit them. Shon Faye is the Bristol born author of the acclaimed bestseller The Transgender Issue. Vanessa Kisuule is a writer, performer and facilitator based in Bristol. She wrote and presented The Poetry Detective for BBC Radio 4 and has two collections with Burning Eye Books. Neverland is her debut non fiction book.

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