Yoga: From the bestselling author of THE ADVERSARY

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A powerful reckoning with mental illness and a search for truth and healing through the discipline of yoga, from one of the world's greatest living writers This is a book about yoga. Or at least, it was. January 2015. High on literary success and familial bliss, Emmanuel Carr re embarks on a rigorous ten-day meditative retreat in rural France in search of clarity and material for his next book, which he thinks will be a subtle, upbeat introduction to yoga. But his trip is cut short, and he is brought down to earth with a thud as he returns to a Paris in turmoil in the aftermath of the Charlie Hebdo terrorist attack. From then on, Carr re's life begins to unravel, along with his novel-in-progress. He is diagnosed with Bipolar II Disorder and is sectioned to a psychiatric hospital for a four-month stint, where he is subject to electroshock therapy. His marriage crumbles, he is struck by grief at the death of a close friend and is haunted by a love affair with a mysterious woman who disappeared from his life. Pushed to the edge of sanity and forced to reckon with his identity as a man and a writer, Carr re sets out on a life of action instead of meditation. This is a book that embraces the Yin and Yang of life- the pull between life and death, desire and despair, presence and absence, fight and flight. It is a book about a world and a man in tumult, and about how surprisingly far practising meditation - and writing about it - can take us in life. With raw honesty and humour, YOGA gives us the self-portrait of a man struggling to live with himself and others, by one of our greatest and most surprising international writers.

Reviews

Completely arresting. He [Carrre] has the talent...of showing us his foibles without demanding that we identify with them. * The Times *
An exhilarating new work of autofiction... It's wonderful. It is Carrre's willingness to face his own flaws full in the face that makes his writing so striking, and - dare I say it - relatable. -- Cal Flyn * Literary Review *
Yoga is the story of how a life can fray, tighten itself into a noose, unravel and, in the process, be built and braided into lines that make up a profound and moving work of art. -- Geoff Dyer
A devastating portrait...[Carrre's] singular, ever-expanding work, in which one pain need never obscure another, in which truths and half-truths are held not in opposition but in delicate, precarious balance, is an answer in itself. -- Sam Byers * Guardian *
I loved Emmanuel Carrre's Yoga... A useful manual for this era, where nothing seems connected but everything's related. -- Adam Thirlwell * Times Literary Supplement *Books of the Year* *

Author Bio

Emmanuel Carr re is a novelist, journalist, screenwriter, and film director. He is the award-winning, internationally renowned author of fifteen books including My Life as a Russian Novel, Limonov, The Kingdom, 97,196 Words, and the Sunday Times bestselling The Adversary. He lives in Paris.