Where the World Begins

On Memory, Repair and Desire

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Rosie Price was twenty-three, starting a life and a career in London, when her world was turned upside down by the re-emergence of a memory of rape. As she tried to piece her life back together, and to reconcile the memory of this long-forgotten night, a deeper philosophical enquiry began.

Feeling alienated from her body, her history and the world around her, questions began to form. Who are we, if not the sum total of our memories, or the story of our life’s experiences? What happens to us when our sense of self is shattered, and how can we repair this rupture?

Price examines these questions through the lenses of art, literature, philosophy and lived experience. Where the World Begins is the story of her quest to reassemble her life, and her capacity to be in the world and to love in the aftermath of violence.

A profoundly moving and fiercely intelligent book. Rosie Price examines selfhood, sexual violence, and the connection between body and mind with unflinching clarity. Through both the narrator’s life and that of her friend Amy, it made me consider how a life can carry us to places we never asked to go. It is an unflinching portrait of the devastation one person’s actions can cause in the life of another, yet it is also a powerful reclamation of selfhood - one that honours resilience for the strength it truly is. The vulnerability and bravery it took to write this book are matched only by the power of the book itself. I am deeply grateful for it, for its intuition and intelligence, and for its power in voicing what is so rarely said. I know countless women will be grateful too
Elaine Feeney, author of Let Me Go Mad in My Own Way

About Rosie Price

Rosie Price is the author of two novels, her highly acclaimed debut What Red Was, an Observer New Voices selection, and The Orange Room. She lives in London.

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