Cinelle Barnes’s memoir pieces together her past as she recovers from brain trauma

“A Way Home: A Memoir of Losing Yourself and the Beauty of Returning” by Cinelle Barnes  is a heart-wrenching memoir about remembering and rebuilding a life after everything known disappears in a flash.

In 2023, Barnes is writing a travelogue about journeying home to the Philippines after a 20-year separation when she suffers a traumatic brain injury.

According to a press statement, “The story of her adoption and immigration to America as a child is not an easy one to tell to begin with. Suddenly, it seems impossible. Her memories and her connection to her husband and daughter in the Carolinas, to her own sense of self, and to her past are all erased in the blink of an eye. Barnes has to not only piece together who she used to be but struggle to learn who she is here and now.”

In this memoir of recovery, Barnes charts her way back to life.

“Through her unfinished manuscript, she sees a creative and vibrant former self she longs to remember and to know all over again. With the everlasting support of family and friends, Cinelle discovers that nobody heals or journeys home alone.”

Cinelle Barnes is the author of “Monsoon Mansion: A Memoir” and “Malaya: Essays on Freedom.” She is also the editor of “A Measure of Belonging: Twenty-One Writers of Color on the New American South.” She earned an MFA in Creative Nonfiction from Converse College.

She is a brain aneurysm survivor and sits on the South Carolina Brain Injury Leadership Council.

In 2021, she was named one of 50 Most Influential by Charleston Business, joining thought leaders in state and local politics, the arts, academia, activism, healthcare, and business.

Her writing has appeared or been featured in the New York Times, Longreads, Garden & Gun, Electric Literature, Buzzfeed Reader, Literary Hub, Hyphen, and CNN Philippines, among other media outlets. Her debut memoir was listed as a Best Nonfiction Book of 2018 by Bustle and nominated for the 2018 Reading Women Nonfiction Award.

Her work has received fellowships and grants from the Sustainable Arts Foundation, VONA, Kundiman, the John and Susan Bennett Memorial Arts Fund, the Lowcountry Quarterly Arts Grant, and Capita.

Aimee Nezhukumatathil, New York Times bestselling author of “World of Wonders” and “Bite by Bite,” writes: “In this stunning memoir, Barnes emphasizes ‘kapwa’―the Tagalog word for shared humanity―writing with a clarity that refuses spectacle and showing how home is grown slowly, through attention and care, rather than claimed all at once. ‘A Way Home’ is a needed reminder that even after displacement and injury, the world still offers places―often in each other―where we can rest and belong.”

Barnes lives in Charleston with her husband, daughter, and cat. Visit: www.cinellebarnes.com.