Close to the Knives by David Wojnarowicz

I am glad I am alive to witness these things; giving words to this life of sensations is a relief. Smell the flowers while you can.
 
Close to the Knives is the artist, writer and activist David Wojnarowicz’s extraordinary memoir. Filthy, beautiful, and sharp to the point of piercing, it is both an exploration of the world seen through the eyes of an artist, and a moving portrait of a generation living, grieving, and dying through the AIDS crisis. It is a triumphant hymn of resistance, and a dizzying celebration of the joys of seeing and living in the world.
 
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“David Wojnarowicz has caught the age-old voice of the road, the voice of the traveller, the outcast, the thief, the whore … Pick up this book and listen” - WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS
 
“My book of a lifetime, my book for these dark times, an antidote to stupidity, cruelty and oppression of all kinds” - OLIVIA LAING, Guardian
 
“Wojnarowicz’s writing fairly smokes with acrid ironies. It’s passionate and personal”. - New York Magazine