An incisive collection about motherhood and creative life through the lens of mothers—in history, literature, and pop culture—who have abandoned their children.
What kind of mother abandons her child? During the pandemic, trapped at home with young children and struggling to find creative space to write, journalist Begoña Gómez Urzaiz became fixated on artistic women who overcame both society’s condemnation and their own maternal guilt to leave their children—at will or due to economic or other circumstances.
The Abandoners is sharp, at times slyly humorous, and always deeply empathetic. Using famous examples such as Ingrid Bergman, Muriel Spark, Doris Lessing, and Maria Montessori as well as fictional ones like Anna Karenina and the many roles of Meryl Streep, and interrogating modern trends like “momfluencers, ” Gómez Urzaiz reveals what our judgement of these women tells us about our judgement of all women.
Om författaren
Begoña Gómez Urzaiz is a freelance journalist living in Barcelona who writes frequently for outlets including La Vanguardia and El País. She co-presents Amiga Date Cuenta, a podcast on culture and feminism, for Radio Primavera Sound, and teaches literary journalism in the master’s program at the Autonomous University of Barcelona.