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Part memoir and reflective analysis, Pragya Agarwal examines motherhood and fertility and how it shapes all our lives
Extremely open in its honesty and meticulously researched, (M)otherhood probes themes of infertility, childbirth and reproductive justice, and makes a powerful and urgent argument for the need to tackle society’s obsession with women’s bodies and fertility.
“An exhilarating, genre-defying read … seamlessly interwoven with statistics, quotes and scientific evidence to clever narrative effect … reminiscent of Olivia Laing’s writing on loneliness or the body … The whole thing adds up to the most thoughtful, empathic and inspiring science of the self”
Viv Groskop
observer
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“Absolutely sensational. Revelatory and of its time, challenging myths and ingrained perceptions. I could not put it down. Everyone should read this”
Michael Cashman, Cbe, Co-founder Of Stonewall
“Brilliant, brave, beautiful … such an inspiring book”
Elif Shafak
“Riveting. Agarwal writes with searing honesty and tenderness about the joys and agonies of becoming a mother, of trying and failing to conceive again, and then of pursuing a route to motherhood that’s widely seen as taboo … Agarwal writes beautifully about her own complicated experience”
guardian
“Intimate and insightful, Pragya Agarwal expands the meaning of the word motherhood in this brilliant book. This is urgent, essential reading for everyone”
Avni Doshi
Pragya Agarwal
Pragya Agarwal is a behavioural and data scientist, Visiting Honorary Professor of Social Inequities and injustice in the UK, and founder of research think-tank ‘The 50 Percent Project’. She was selected as a ‘creative thinker’ for innovative and interdisciplinary research by NESTA and given a Diverse Wisdom award by Hay House Publishing. Pragya has also held the Leverhulme Fellowship and other academic positions and fellowships at University College London, Johns Hopkins University and University of Melbourne. Pragya has written for the Guardian, Forbes, Scientific American and New Scientist as well as acclaimed peer-reviewed scholarly articles, and her creative non-fiction writing also appears in Literary Hub and AEON. She is the author of Sway: Unravelling Unconscious Bias, Wish We Knew What To Say: Talking With Children about Race, (M)otherhood: On the Choices of Being a Woman and Standing Up to Racism, her first book for children. She lives in the north-west of England. @DrPragyaAgarwal | drpragyaagarwal.com
(M)otherhood in the Observer:
“In (M)otherhood, behavioural scientist Pragya Agarwal wonders if a book questioning the parental self and society’s attitudes to that self needs to define itself either as memoir or as political writing: ‘Does it really have to sit in a box?’ Here is proof that it really doesn’t: this is an exhilarating, genre-defying read… The whole thing adds up to the most thoughtful, empathic and inspiring science of the self.”
Viv Groskop
Observer