"An urgently needed, unyielding book of theoretical and intimate strength."
—Kirkus Reviews, starred review

"Wow. This book completely blew me away. I finished it and started right back in to pick at the nuanced and knotted language that emits from Belcourt. This is a phenomenal exploration of the poetics of queerdom and isolation and loneliness as philosophy, and as a collection of essays it stands alone. It exists as a statement of pure joy while at the same time delves deep into the (thoroughly complicated and corrupted) self. I can't wait to share this with everyone I know, I see Bill-Ray going far."
—Ryan Evans, WORD Bookstore

"Billy-Ray Belcourt exposes colonialism's historical and ongoing brutality against both the North American Indigenous and queer experiences. Through theory, memoir, and poetry, Belcourt notates an 'archive of injuries' to then shape joy beyond known parameters. These essays are a glorious way to be held accountable. Bill-Ray Belcourt writes for his body, his being; read for yours."
—Heidi Birchler, Moon Palace Books

"I choose not to reduce A History of My Brief Body to simply a bending of genre. Well beyond that simple idea, Billy-Ray Belcourt uses a dexterity of language and form as a container for memory and nostalgia as vehicles for truth about a still-blooming present. I love a book where a writer treats themselves and their own histories with gentleness and care, and this book is a towering achievement on that front."
—Hanif Abdurraqib, author of They Can't Kill Us Until They Kill Us, Go Ahead in the Rain, and A Fortune for Your Disaster

"Billy-Ray Belcourt's moving and important book A History of My Brief Body dazzles in its quest to prove 'Joy is art is an ethics of resistance.' Not quite memoir, not quite poetry, not quite novel, this dizzying and intelligent book traces a queer NDN coming-of-age with equal parts search and insight. The book draws inspiration from the likes of Claudia Rankine, Terese Marie Mailhot, and Maggie Nelson, but Belcourt is no mimic; with A History of My Brief Body, Belcourt takes his place among these important thinkers."
—Danny Caine, Raven Book Store (Lawrence, KS)

"In A History of My Brief Body, Billy-Ray breaks apart the reflection of a life into the specificity of moments—both his own and our collective experience—and beads them into his simultaneously sharp and lush writing. Bursting with all the movements of sex, riot, and repose, this book presents us with a shock of recognition and reclamation, and we are better for it—punch drunk and aching but, oh, so much better. I’m gutted by his brilliant mind."
—Cherie Dimaline, author of Empire of Wild and The Marrow Thieves

"Settler colonialism demands we believe we’d be better off without our bodies—their needs, their feelings, their raucous disobedience and ungovernable change. I don’t always know how to talk back to the violent nonsense that says, Disappear. With precision and care, Billy-Ray Belcourt presses thought against feeling to make, in each essay, an unbounded space for knowing and for staying whole."
—Elissa Washuta, author of My Body is a Book of Rules

“A History of My Brief Body puts the reader at the center of a deeply serious struggle—with language, with sexuality, with race and colonial Canada, and with love and joy and a life in art. It’s about the attempt to stand in a center one has created, all while feeling the impossibility of ever doing so, and also wondering if maybe one shouldn’t. This is a passionate and vital autobiography about the intellect, the culture, and the flesh, as it bears its assaults and preserves a true light.”
—Sheila Heti, author of Motherhood and How Should a Person Be?