Muswell Press signs 'piercing' memoir from Avi Ben-Zeev

Muswell Press has signed Trans Bear Diaries: Calling My Deadname Home from professor of psychology Avi Ben-Zeev. 

Publishers Kate and Sarah Beal Beal acquired world rights directly from the author. The book will be published on 14th November 2024. 

Pitched as a "memoir like no other", Trans Bear Diaries charts Ben-Zeev’s attempt to reconnect with "his hyper-feminine straight female past" after transitioning. His memoir also explores the author’s childhood growing up in a working-class family in Israel and "what it means to come home to oneself with brutal honesty, humour and self-compassion... At its heart is a universal theme: to become who we already are, we must integrate the past into the present." 

Ben-Zeev commented: "Early in my gender transition, I tried killing off my female past. But my deadname [referring to a transgender person by the name they used before transitioning], Talia, fought back. She kept barging into consciousness, insisting on being seen and integrated into the man I was becoming. This is our story, and it goes beyond gender to explore what it means to come home." 

Ben-Zeev received his PhD from Yale and now lives in London.