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The Art of Binding People

A poetic memoir that challenges assumptions on mental health

Paolo Milone author Lucy Rand translator

Format:Paperback

Publisher:Europa Editions (UK) Ltd

Published:25th May '23

Should be back in stock very soon

The Art of Binding People cover

We often speak of doctors as heroes, martyrs, or victims. Drawing from forty years of experience on an emergency psychiatric ward, Paolo Milone offers a more complex—and more compelling—picture. He transports us inside Ward 77, where mental illness coexists with the ordinary lives of those who, at the end of their shifts, take their white coats off. 

In this unsettling, absorbing, and transformative memoir Milone challenges many of our assumptions about mental health, as we follow nurses, doctors, and patients along the hospital corridors, and we enter the shattered lives of those living on both sides of the invisible, arbitrary boundary, that separates the healthy from the sick.

Told with humour and compassion, Paolo Milone’s English language debut is a work of striking humanity that conjures lasting beauty out of the darkness.

“One of the most unusual, beautiful, and poetic literary works on mental illness I’ve ever read.” -- Nicola Lagioia * La Repubblica *
“Full of irony, intelligence, and lyricism.” * Corriere della Sera *
“A powerful hymn to compassion towards ourselves and others.” * Grazia (Italy) *

ISBN: 9781787704510

Dimensions: unknown

Weight: unknown

160 pages