Available Formats
The Women I Think About at Night: Traveling the Paths of My Heroes
By (Author) Mia Kankimki
Translated by Douglas Robinson
Simon & Schuster
Simon & Schuster
7th April 2021
Export
United States
General
Non Fiction
Gender studies: women and girls
Travel guides: adventure holidays
Paperback
416
Width 152mm, Height 229mm, Spine 25mm
451g
In The Women I Think About at Night, Mia Kankimki blends travelogue, memoir, and biography as she recounts her enchanting travels in Japan, Kenya, and Italy while retracing the steps of ten remarkable female pioneers from history.
What can a forty-something childless woman do Bored with her life and feeling stuck, Mia Kankimki leaves her job, sells her apartment, and decides to travel the world, following the paths of the female explorers and artists from history who have long inspired her. She flies to Tanzania and then to Kenya to see where Karen Blixenof Out of Africafame lived in the 1920s. In Japan, Mia attempts to cure her depression while researching Yayoi Kusama, the contemporary artist who has voluntarily lived in a psychiatric hospital for decades. In Italy, Mia spends her days looking for the works of forgotten Renaissance women painters of the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, and finally finds her heroines in the portraits of Sofonisba Anguissola, Lavinia Fontana, and Artemisia Gentileschi. If these women could make it in the world hundreds of years ago, why cant Mia
The Women I Think About at Night is part travelogue and part thrilling exploration of the lost women adventurers of history who defied expectations in order to seeand changethe world.
"[A]stute, entertaining....This insightful book will appeal to adventure enthusiasts and be an inspiration for those with an eye on hitting their stride later in life."--Publisher's Weekly
Mia Kankimkihas worked with books all her life: she has a masters degree in comparative literature from the University of Helsinki, and she has worked as a copywriter and editor at various publishing houses. Her travels in Tanzania, Kenya, Italy, and Japan in the footsteps of inspirational, historical female figures inspired her bookThe Women I Think About at Night. When not traveling for her next book project, Mia Kankimki lives in Helsinki, Finland.