9th Ave: Fariha Róisín with Jessica Ferri

Submitted by the Event Organizer

Join us on Thursday, June 16th at 7pm PT when Fariha Róisín joins us to celebrate her latest book, Who is Wellness For?, with Jessica Ferri at 9th Ave!

Masks and Proof of Vaccination Required

Or watch online by registering HERE

Praise for Who is Wellness For?

“In Who is Wellness For?, Fariha Róisín offers no quick fixes or easy answers to processing the human condition. Yet, if truth has the power to heal, then Róisín’s work is the best kind of healing.”— Ashley C. Ford, author of Somebody’s Daughter

“In Who is Wellness For?, Fariha teaches us that our collective survival is miraculous, and that we need to consistently honor that blessing. Her integrity to healing shows that the work is grueling and vulnerable, yet deeply necessary. I have sobbed, sighed, and smiled while reading this book, and I am deeply moved that we get to witness Fariha hold herself while so generously guiding us toward holding ourselves too.”— Mimi Zhu, author of Be Not Afraid of Love

“In this vital work, Fariha Roisin deconstructs, and then tenderly rebuilds, the concept of “wellness” with stunning insight, giving us a new, liberatory vision of what true healing can look like— not just for ourselves, but for all of us. Weaving together an encyclopedic knowledge of the wellness-industrial-complex with her own compelling journey towards healing, Roisin offers a truly holistic roadmap to a softer world. Everyone must read this book.”

— Zeba Blay, author of Carefree Black Girls

About Who is Wellness For?

The multi-disciplinary artist and author of Like a Bird and How to Cure a Ghost explores the commodification and appropriation of wellness through the lens of social justice, providing resources to help anyone participate in self-care, regardless of race, identity, socioeconomic status or able-bodiedness.

Growing up in Australia, Fariha Róisín, a Bangladeshi Muslim, struggled to fit in. In attempts to assimilate, she distanced herself from her South Asian heritage and identity. Years later, living in the United States, she realized that the customs, practices, and even food of her native culture that had once made her different—everything from ashwagandha to prayer—were now being homogenized and marketed for good health, often at a premium by white people to white people.

In this thought-provoking book, part memoir, part journalistic investigation, the acclaimed writer and poet explores the way in which the progressive health industry has appropriated and commodified global healing traditions. She reveals how wellness culture has become a luxury good built on the wisdom of Black, brown, and Indigenous people—while ignoring and excluding them.

Who Is Wellness For? is divided into four sections, beginning with The Mind, in which Fariha examines the art of meditation and the importance of intuition. In part two, The Body, she investigates the physiology of trauma, detailing her own journey with fatphobia and gender dysmorphia, as well as her own chronic illness. In part three, Self-Care, she argues against the self-care industrial complex but cautious us against abandoning care completely and offers practical advice. She ends with Justice, arguing that if we truly want to be well, we must be invested in everyone’s well being and shift toward nurturance culture.

Deeply intimate and revelatory, Who Is Wellness For? forces us to confront the imbalance in health and healing and carves a path towards self-care that is inclusionary for all.

About Fariha Róisín

Fariha Róisín is a multidisciplinary artist, born in Ontario, Canada. She was raised in Sydney, Australia, and is based in Brooklyn, New York. As a Muslim queer Bangladeshi, she is interested in the margins, liminality, otherness, and the mercurial nature of being. Her work has pioneered a refreshing and renewed conversation about wellness, contemporary Islam and queer identities and has been featured in the New York Times, Al Jazeera, The Guardian, and Vogue. She is the author of the poetry collection How To Cure A Ghost (2019), as well as the novel Like A Bird (2020).

About Jessica Ferri

Jessica Ferri is a writer and photographer based in Northern California. Her work has been published in The Los Angeles Times, The Daily Beast, NPR, Yahoo!, The Economist, The Barnes and Noble Review, The New Yorker‘s Page Turner, Time Out New York, and more. She is the author of Silent Cities New York and Silent Cities San Francisco. She is currently at work on her first novel.

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