AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF MY BODY (Autobiografie an mijn Lichaam)

Whenever my parents reach out: something in me that emerges, like the punching bag at the fair falling into place when you drop a coin in the slot, ready to be smacked.

At the end of 2021, Lize Spit receives an email in which her mother writes that she has terminal cancer and that she is divorcing Liz’s father. Right after receiving this email, Spit writes that she not only has to determine her position as a daughter but also consider how the writer in her should react to these news. ‘Which details should I store in order to describe this moment as well as possible later?’   With her mother reaching the end of her life, Lize undertake a final approach towards her and examines her complex relationship with her parents. Never before has finding the right words been so difficult, never before has it been so necessary. Autobiography of My Body is a radically honest and poignant examination of a daughter trying to understand not only her troubled relationship with her mother, but also her disturbed relationship to her own body. 

‘In Autobiography of my body, Lize Spit tells the story of her childhood with addicted parents. A painful (and beautiful) self-examination in which she builds a bridge to her dying mother – and to the girl from that time who developed such a distorted body image. It is a body in which illnesses lurk, her type 1 diabetes, chronic stomach infections. But also: guilt, depression, insomnia, fear of losing control. She will never give birth to a child, the decision to forgo a child brings sadness, but also relief. Yet with the death of her mother approaching, she realizes that she still has to relate to all those former versions of herself: ‘there are all these children with rolled-up memories inside me, beating their fists against the tight membrane of this adult body,’ Spit writes. (…) This is a beautiful book that is both merciless and full of grace’– Het Parool, Book of the month

‘ From the start, Spit makes it clear that this is not a book about a writer and her mother, but about a writer, a daughter and her mother. Distance plays a major role in it, which makes it so incredibly strong. No hopeless wallowing in self-pity, but a tight and at the same time moving analysis of the problematic family in which she grew up and the marks and bruises it left on her body and mind’ – Knack

‘The new Lize Spit is a merciless portrait of a mother, but also an unvarnished look in the mirror. Stunningly hard, stunningly open. It is an anatomy lesson, in which not only the mother is put on the dissecting table, but the family, including the writer. (…) With Autobiography of my body, Spit places her original book in the hands of the reader. Everything is in it, the whole Lize. The ice block from The Melting? Check. The partner with psychoses from I am not Here? Present. The Kosovar family from The Honest Finder? Present. Powerful and fragile, this is a porcelain hammer.' – ★★★★★, de Standaard

‘Control is typical of Lize Spit (1988), who consistently delivers craftsmanship excellence as a writer. Friend and foe agreed that her successful debut The Melting (2016), its successor I’m Not Here (2020) and The Honest Finder (2023) were wonderfully put together. This writer knew exactly how to dose the tension and irrevocably squeeze readers' throats. No matter how far her plot expanded, she kept a firm grip on the reins. Spit now interrupts the line of well-plotted novels with her new book, Autobiography of my body, in favor of an approach that can only be described as ‘more honest’ – the material seems to have asked for it. Where the ‘writing daughter’ previously also drew on her youth and experiences, but built an (exciting) story from them and thus pulled the whole thing into the domain of fiction, we now read about Lize Spit herself, with her full name, or well: her family members were given slightly different names. But thanks to the realization with which Spit begins, thanks to that confession about what writing means to her, she sets up her story in a completely different way. By focusing the spotlight on her urge for control, she immediately relinquishes control. That promises something: no disguise of fiction, no tricks or compromises, but a self-conscious analysis of the person behind the writer. (…) 'Spit manages to squeeze your throat again. An uncompromising book.' – ★★★★, NRC

'An autobiography that hits like a hammer blow.' – Volkskrant Magazine

'Ruthlessly honest.' – ★★★★½, Het Nieuwsblad