The Running Body

The Running Body by Emily Pifer, selected by Steve Almond as the winner of the 2021 Autumn House Nonfiction Prize, is a memoir of addiction, body image, and healing, through the lens of a long-distance runner.  Pifer’s debut memoir wrestles and reckons with power and agency, language and story, body dysphoria and beauty standards, desire and addiction, loss and healing. Pifer employs multiple modes of storytelling—memoir, meditation, and cultural analysis—interweaving research, argument, an