The Fifth Wound by Aurora Mattia

Description

NAMED A MUST READ BOOK OF 2023 BY NYLON, BOOKRIOT, VULTURE, THE MILLIONS, and MS. MAGAZINE

A baroque work of intimate myth exploring one woman’s interdimensional search for beauty and embodiment, through kaleidoscopic renderings of hospital corridors, brutal breakups, and passionate romance. The Fifth Wound is a phantasmagorical roman à clef about passion as a way of life.

In one dimension, this is a love story—Aurora & Ezekiel—a separation and a reunion. In another, we witness a tale of multiple traumatic encounters with transphobic violence. And on yet another plane, a story of ecstatic visionary experience swirls, shatters, and sparkles.

Featuring time travel, medieval nuns, knifings, and t4t romance, The Fifth Wound indulges the blur between fantasy and reality. Its winding sentences open like portals, inviting the reader into the intimacy of embodiment—both its pain and its pleasures.