How to Tell When We Will Die

“Hedva, a committed reader of queer and female artists, creates, in reaction to their influences, a new construction of themself: a nonbinary and Asian disabled intellectual, as a lens through which to see the world. By centering their experiences into a cohered perspective, they make a contribution on the fronts of fragility and rage, justice and systems, desire and limitation that expands pre-existing frameworks for conceptualizing human experience.” —Sarah Schulman, author of Let the Record Show: A Political History of ACT UP New York, 1987-1993 “Like many, I have been waiting patiently for Johanna Hedva's essay collection and How to Tell When We Will Die comes now at the perfect moment in the culture. A decade in the making, Hedva adds to and updates the classics of their oeuvre—but the book goes beyond even that. We journey from their body and mind to learning about their mother, ancestors, relationship to biculturalism in all its forms, their take on queerness and its intersection with illness. There is so much beauty and horror and tenderness and humor and mysticism in these pages that reading it feels like living infinite lifetimes within the topic dearest to me, that should be dearest to everyone. This transcendent collection operates like a kaleidoscope of memoir, manifesto, cultural criticism, even found object, and how Hedva tackles and untangles every aspect of their identity made me feel like just maybe the people I am rooting for most will win in the end!” —Porochista Khakpour, author of Sick: A Memoir “We are so excited by the beautiful movement this book could inspire as we work to reconsider, reframe, and reimagine the world around us. We were founded by creatives and artists, for creatives and artists, from a sincere and passionate determination to disrupt the status quo while calling others to rise to the same. It was so inspiring to find that same spirit in your writing and your vision, one that acknowledges hard realities as much as it celebrates joy and being, that questions as much as it empathizes, that will quote Susan Sontag and reference astrology alike. We very much hope this is the beginning of a long, thoughtful, rebellious, doom metal dialogue together that takes us all to new and wonderful places.” —Hillman Grad Books