The Hour of My Death

Marge Piercy's memoir is a testament to her legacy

After revered poet, writer, and feminist icon Marge Piercy dies in a medical emergency in October 2022, only to be resuscitated, she wakes to create her legacy piece. The Hour of My Death: A Journal of the Year After I Died is a personal narrative in the Japanese Zuihitsu literary form that encompasses diary-style entries, recipes, gardening advice and her luminous poetry, all detailing a joyful year of living in her resurrected old age.

A beloved American progressive activist, feminist, and writer, her seminal work includes Woman On The Edge Of Time; He, She And It, which won the 1993 Arthur C. Clarke Award; and Gone To Soldiers, the New York Times bestseller and sweeping historical novel set during World War II. She has authored fifteen other novels and short story collections, and penned twenty volumes of poetry. Her poems are regularly reprinted in anthologies, on artwork, and as song lyrics. Piercy was a pioneer in the use of gender-neutral pronouns in the 1970s and her work is a staple in Women's Studies programs. Now 90, she has completed this last work with her reflections on a life extended with the grace and wisdom that comes with that.