No Is Not a Lonely Utterance : The Art and Activism of Complaining

No blurb or details yet for next year's new book from Sara Ahmed, but here are a few words she's shared about this latest:

"I thought I was writing two handbooks with some old companions: a feminist killjoy’s handbook and a complainer’s handbook. And I did write them. For me a handbook is a hand and a handle: how we hold on to something. My editor at Penguin – the brilliant Josephine Greywoode -was concerned about the title A Complainer’s Handbook. She thought it made the work sound more prosaic and even plodding than it actually is. She wanted a title that would catch the more poetic style of at least some of the writing. Whilst we were chatting, I said in passing, “No is Not a Lonely Utterance.” I was talking about how when we say no we are often picking up from others, and how our no can be picked up by others. Well Josephine picked up that sentence, and suggested it as our title. So, now it is! Introducing: No is Not a Lonely Utterance: The Art and Activism of Complaining"

A moving exploration of the solace and power of listening in an unjust world, from the author of The Feminist Killjoy Handbook‘Behind many disasters are unheard complaints’To complain is an intimate, dangerous act. Whether it’s speaking up about racism in the workplace or taking a stand against sexual harassment at university, the act of complaining to an institution can leave you isolated and undermined, all while the original injustice remains unresolved. Time and time again, we see these unanswered complaints compound to disastrous effect.

In No is Not a Lonely Utterance, Sara Ahmed dissects the anatomy of a complaint, revealing how institutions create hostile environments that stigmatize complainers, and charts a way we can listen to grievances with ‘feminist ears’: going beyond mere validation and seeking instead to address the root causes of injustice and inequality. Weaving together testimonies from various walks of life, Ahmed shows us what we learn about the ways institutions exercise their power when complaints are raised, and indeed what we learn about our capacity to collectivize and create social bonds through complaint. In doing so, she inspires us to create better environments for our life’s work.