JOANNA WALSH

"It is rare to find a writer who can take such candid pleasure in beauty—the beauty of faces, figures, clothing, and cities—while also querying its injustices. To watch Godard's films through Joanna Walsh's eyes is to see envy and appreciation, longing and disavowal, walking hand in hand. This book is a gorgeous complex gesture of criticism."—Merve Emre, author of The Annotated Mrs. Dalloway

As Joanna Walsh watches the films of Jean-Luc Godard, she considers beauty and desire in life and art. “There’s a resistance, in Godard’s women,” writes Walsh, “that is at the heart of his work (and theirs).” She is captivated by the Paris of his films and the often porous border between the city presented on screen and the one she inhabited herself. With cool precision, and in language that shines with aphoristic wit, Walsh has crafted an exquisitely intimate portrait of the way attention to works of art becomes attention to changes in ourselves. Taut and gem-like, My Life as a Godard Movie is a probing meditation by one of our most observant writers.

Joanna Walsh is a multidisciplinary writer, artist and arts activist. The author of eleven books, including Hotel, Vertigo, Worlds from the Word's End Break*up, and Girl Online, she also writes for performance, visual art and digital narrative, often working with programming and AI. She is a UK Arts Foundation fellow, and the recipient of the Markievicz Award in the Republic of Ireland. She founded and ran #readwomen (2014-18), described by the New York Times as “a rallying cry for equal treatment for women writers” and currently runs @noentry_arts.

My Life as a Godard Movie is part of the Undelivered Lectures series.