Sleeping Letters

A unique, intimate and beautiful exploration of grief, loss, healing and faith, that looks back to the childhood moment when Marie-Elsa R. Bragg’s mother committed suicide.

When Marie-Elsa R. Bragg was just 6 years old, her mother committed suicide. Now, many years later, Marie-Elsa returns to that night.

Going back to that moment, inhabiting this defining tragedy, allows for an exploration of the grief but also brings healing – as well as the affirmation that it is her experiences as a priest that have carried her. In a unique and remarkable mix of prose and poetry, and written partly as a series of unsent letters to both her mother and father, Sleeping Letters is a way of connecting to past family, an attempt to reconcile with loss, as well as a radical exploration of Marie-Elsa’s own faith. While harrowing and unforgettable, it is also an immensely beautiful book, with a luminous sense of a daughter’s love.