In the sterile dormitories and on the quiet winter greens of an American university, a young woman named M - deals with the repercussions of a strange encounter with an angel, one that has left a large bruise on her forehead. Was the event real or imagined?

Winner of Ronald Sukenick Prize for Innovative Fiction "The Bruise" is a prize-winning novel of imperative voice and raw sensation. In the sterile dormitories and on the quiet winter greens of an American university, a young woman named M-- deals with the repercussions of a strange encounter with an angel, one that has left a large bruise on her forehead. Was the event real or imagined? The bruise does not disappear, forcing M-- to confront her own existential fears and her wavering desire to tell the story of her imagination. As a writer, M-- is breathless, desperate, and obsessive, questioning the mutations and directions of her words while writing with fevered immediacy. Using rhythmic language, suffused with allusions to literature and art, Magdalena Zurawski recasts the bildungsroman as a vibrant and moving form.