Dismayed, they caught the train there but what greeted them, Stephanie wrote, was ‘more lovely than we could have imagined’. They arrived in Nagasaki at Chinese New Year the closest accommodation they could find was a house in Arita, two hours away. She welcomed us all.Ī year after both our books were published, I received an email from friends travelling in Japan. The new book (rushed into print but its quality in no way compromised, right down to its beautiful production by her publisher) had brought radio and newspaper interviewers into her days, and dozens of messages of congratulations.
Some of them return to her last weeks, the talks over cups of Japanese tea, energetic conversations that looped around art and life and children and, of course, writing. I have my own personal memories of Cory that I clutch to myself like treasures. In this way she is, like her writing, like her outlook, generous beyond measure. She raises it up to illuminate her own path but also to clear ours. Cory doesn’t flinch in her role as the lantern bearer and guide for death. Unsparing in its insights and observations, breathtaking in its courage and generosity, the book is a lantern held high on the dark road we’re all on but mostly ignore.
That Dying: A Memoir – this beautiful tribute to life and death, of the writer’s craft – will not be followed by more.Ĭory’s final testament arrived like a thoughtful gift to anyone who opened it. To honour her shortlisting and celebrate the book, Cory’s friend Kristina Olsson shares this reflection.Ĭory’s last book: the very phrase still seems impossible. It was written in the space of a few weeks before Cory’s death from cancer in July 2016. Cory Taylor’s Dying: A Memoir is shortlisted for the 2017 Stella Prize.
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