The Collected Schizophrenias: Essays by Esmé Weijun Wang

The Collected Schizophrenias: Essays by Esmé Weijun Wang (Graywolf Press, 2019)

★★★★☆

A fascinating collection of essays charting Wang’s experiences of “the schizophrenias,” illuminating how our institutions both (in theory) care for and (in practice) harm those living with this family of mental disorders.

Well-researched and -written. Wang writes lucidly and analytically about trauma, confusion, and terror. She questions the viability of her ever becoming well, the ethics of what it means to try and medicate an individual toward a hypothetical “person under the disorder” who might not exist. Her essays show the complexity of living with mental illness in American society, and mix awareness and shame, love and loathing, disappointment and hope, beautifully.