A poetic and heart-breaking account of a parent attempting to come to terms with and put into words what it is like to lose your child.
'Missing word. A woman who buries her husband is called a widow, a man left behind without his wife, a widower. A child without parents is an orphan. But what do you call the father and mother of a child that has died?'
After the death of his little girl, PF Thomese found himself in deathly silent rooms, among words not yet experienced that he still had to learn to write. 'If she still exists anywhere, then it's in language.'
'Shadow Child' is the moving story of this search for words. It is a breath-taking tribute to a deceased daughter, at once a declaration of love, elegy and self-examination. An entire life is turned upside down, its meaning has to be reinvented.
