Five books that explore motherhood, intention, and desire

Uttama Kirit Patel is a writer and magazine founder and editor, and has lived in twelve cities across three continents. She holds an MPhil in Psychology from the University of Cambridge, has been a semi-finalist in the Raymond Carver Short Story Contest, and was nominated for the PEN/Robert J. Dau Short Story Prize for Emerging Writers.

Patel's debut novel is Shape of an Apostrophe.

At Lit Hub the author tagged five "books which expose the complexity of choosing, upholding or opting out of motherhood." One title on the list:

Julie Phillips, The Baby on the Fire Escape: Creativity, Motherhood, and the Mind-Baby Problem

This book is an exploration of opposing forces: a child that needs commitment and a calling that requires freedom. Raising children in a polyamorous union, writing in a constant state of interruption, surrendering the identity of mother so as to rise to artistic greatness—these are some ways the “ostensibly liberated” creatives examined in this book (including Ursula K. Le Guin, Audre Lorde, and Susan Sontag) made space for the imagination and the domestic.

A battle of the spirit as much as of logistics, we are shown the depths of what creativity and motherhood simultaneously demanded of the women, a struggle intensified from feeling thwarted by both.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue