Pilgrim Bell

*AN OBSERVER BOOK OF THE YEAR 2021*
**Selected as one of TIME''s 100 Must-Read Books of 2021**

''Profound and singular, smart and sad and funny. . . We need Pilgrim Bell.'' TOMMY ORANGE

With formal virtuosity and ruthless precision, Kaveh Akbar''s second collection takes its readers on a spiritual journey of disavowal, fiercely attendant to the presence of divinity where artifacts of self and belonging have been shed. How does one recover from addiction without destroying the self-as-addict? And if living justly in a nation that would see them erased is, too, a kind of self-destruction, what does one do with the body''s question, "what now shall I repair?" Here, Akbar responds with prayer as an act of devotion to dissonance - the infinite void of a loved one''s absence, the indulgence of austerity, making a life as a Muslim in an Islamophobic nation - teasing the sacred out of silence and stillness.

Richly crafted and genero