Omniscient kindness

Omniscient Kindness is a memoir written in linked essays. It draws from childhood memories, present-day reflection, and the rhythms of two languages, Albanian and English, to ask what does it mean to grow up in a home shaped by both violence and love?

The title comes from my young narrator’s greatest wish, that some loving, all-seeing presence might watch over her and hold her safely. As an adult, I’ve come to understand writing as that presence — a way of returning to the girl I was and offering her warmth, attention, and the company she did not always have.

The book begins in Iowa, where our narrator has gone to make sense of her past by writing about it. Each chapter takes a small scene as its starting point: an ice cream cone, a near-drowning at the beach, a piece of wood lodged across a window, a plastic Donald Duck. Each scene opens onto a larger question. These essays ask questions about memory, family, immigration, and survival. They are also about what writing can do for a life that has already been lived.