Specimen An Essay

"Contaminated by literature and compelled by the impossibility of translating one another, two young lovers fall in love against their better judgment in Sienna Liu's polyvocal book-length essay Specimen. Through meetings and missives from Cape Town to Beijing to Paris to London, the lovers lie, fight, observe and analyze, write and re-write themselves for one another, only to find that their carefully constructed narrative has obtained a life of its own which overshadows and usurps their relationship. Weaving together years of diaries, notes, text messages, and memory, Specimen is an exploration of diaspora, nostalgia, writing, the creation of oneself through another, and time itself." -- goodreads.com