'Powerful, humane and deeply affecting, Lister's wise and truthful writing makes this essential reading for anyone touched, and utterly confused, by grief.' Sali Hughes

'The must-read memoir' Red

What does it mean to become a widow at 35?

In her mid-thirties Kat Lister lost her husband to brain cancer. After five years of being a wife and one of being a carer, in love and in and out of hospitals, she became a widow.

In the year following his death Kat seeks refuge in stories of grief and widowhood, but struggles to find a language that can make sense of her experience and the physicality of bereavement. Instead, she turns to the elements - fire, water, earth, air - on her quest to come to terms with her grief, to inhabit her body again, and to find out who she is now.

The Elements is a story of love, pain, hope and, ultimately, transformation.