Possessions: Davina Quinlivan on Decolonising Class, Climate, and Career
"Are we truly happy, or are we just running faster and faster for golden rings that don't exist?"
This was the question at the heart of my conversation this week with the brilliant Davina Quinlivan. We sat down to discuss her new memoir, Possessions, and it turned into an essential manifesto for anyone feeling "severed" from their body by the modern digital workplace. We explore how to reclaim agency in an era of precarity, from the "Academic Barbie" persona to why the radical act of loafing is a vital defence against the demand for constant productivity.
About the Book: 'Possessions'
Launching in late January 2026 via Little Toller, Possessions: A memoir of transformation in an era of precarity is a genre-defying exploration of heritage, education, and the environment. Following her acclaimed work Shalimar, Quinlivan uses magical realism and visceral prose to navigate the tensions of mixed-heritage identity and the "rigged game" of the modern professional world.
The Deep Dive and Core Conversations
The "Academic Barbie" Mask: Davina unpacks the performative "chameleon" nature required to navigate elite institutions as a working-class person of mixed heritage. At what point does the mask stop protecting you and start erasing you?
The Cartesian Split (Digital Burnout): A profound look at how the Zoom era attempts to sever the head from the body, treating humans as data streams rather than physical beings.
The Sonic the Hedgehog Metaphor: Why the gig economy feels like a simulation where we run faster and faster for "golden rings" (funding and approval), only to risk losing it all on a single "spike."
Reclaiming the 'Radical Loaf': Turning the negative label of "loafing" into a positive act of resistance. How observing the natural world and "ancestral time" disrupts the colonial-capitalist clock.
Shoutouts were given to the mighty Bookbag in Exeter, and Edinburgh’s Argonaut Books and The Portobello Bookshop
Connect with Davina -
Instagram: @qdavina
Publisher: www.littletoller.co.uk
More about the book - https://womensprize.com/why-i-write-imaginative-memoir-by-davina-quinlivan/
