Your Heart Is a Muscle the Size of a Fist (Hardcover)
Staff Reviews
Yapa takes us into the streets and inner workings of the 1999 World Trade Organization protests in Seattle from a myriad of fascinating perspectives including policemen, protesters, and even a delegate from Sri Lanka. Vivid prose and character development fully capture your attention, but the lasting effects of this engagement on the psyches of those involved are even more compelling. A wonderful book to challenge your own thinking regarding civil disobedience and a terrific gateway to wider discussion of important issues.
— From Phyllis recommendsJanuary 2016 Indie Next List
“Yapa's debut novel is a raw orchestra of voices needing to be heard. Bringing to life the 1999 World Trade Organization protests in Seattle, all those present are both dedicated and at a loss: the organizers and protesters, the police and their chief, the delegates and politicians, and the young unintended participant who is searching for meaning, purpose, and hope amid the brutality. From the personal to the political, within a single fraught day the whole world is blown wide open. Yapa has captured the chaos -- and the beauty -- with both fierceness and heart.”
— Melinda Powers (E), Bookshop Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, CA
Description
A Finalist for the PEN/ Faulkner Award
n Amazon Best Book of the Year
A Washington Post Notable Book
A Barnes & Noble Discover Pick
One of Bustle's "Most Important Books of 2016"
Named Most Anticipated Book of the Year in Wall Street Journal, Entertainment Weekly, TIME, Huffington Post, The Chicago Tribune, BuzzFeed, Houston Chronicle, San Francisco Chronicle, Orlando Sentinel, Ploughshares, Bustle, TheMillions, BookRiot, The Oregonian, The San Diego Union-Tribune, River City Reading, Indigo
Grief-stricken after his mother's death and three years of wandering the world, Victor is longing for a family and a sense of purpose. He believes he's found both when he returns home to Seattle only to be swept up in a massive protest. With young, biracial Victor o one side of the barricades and his estranged father--the white chief of police--on the opposite, the day descends into chaos, capturing in its confusion the activists, police, bystanders, and citizens from all around the world who'd arrived that day brimming with hope. By the day's end, they have all committed acts they never thought possible.
As heartbreaking as it is pulse-pounding, Yapa's virtuosic debut asks profound questions about the power of empathy in our hyper-connected modern world, and the limits of compassion, all while exploring how far we must go for family, for justice, and for love.
About the Author
Sunil Yapa holds a bachelor's degree in economic geography from Penn State University and an MFA from Hunter College. The biracial son of a Sri Lankan father and mother from Montana, Yapa has lived around the world, including time in Greece, Guatemala, Chile, Argentina, China, and India, as well as London, Montreal, and New York City.
