Inferno

A powerful, searing account of one woman's struggle with psychosis in the wake of her firstborn child, that strikes at the heart of our preconceptions about what it means to be a daughter, immigrant, wife and mother.

SHORTLISTED FOR THE SUNDAY TIMES YOUNG WRITER OF THE YEAR AWARD
SHORTLISTED FOR THE JHALAK PRIZE

Catherine Cho's son was three months old when she and her husband left home to introduce him to their families.

Catherine herself could never have envisaged how the trip would end for her — surfacing in an involuntary psychiatric ward, separated from her husband and child, unable to understand who she was, or remember how she got there.

In her two weeks on the ward, Catherine turned to her notebook to reconstruct who she was, piece by piece, from the fragments of her life as they drifted back to her. The result is this powerful exploration of psychosis and motherhood, at once intensely personal, yet holding within it a universal experience — of how we love, live and understand ourselves in relation to each other.

*Observer Book of the Week*
*A Guardian Memoir of the Year 2020*
*Harper's Bazaar 10 Women Who Will Shape What You Watch, See and Read in 2020*

'A haunting, eloquent evocation of becoming a stranger to yourself' Observer

'A beautifully written account of postpartum psychosis, and the ties, blessings and burdens of family' NIGELLA LAWSON