Cinelle Barnes // “A Way Home”

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Charleston Library Society

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Cinelle Barnes "A Way Home" at the Charleston Library Society

Creator of the widely beloved Monsoon Mansion, Charleston-based author Cinelle Barnes will soon release her second book, a special personal memoir, and we could not be more honored to host her pub week debut. After a multi-year recovery, A Way Home documents the unexpected journey of recovery and rediscovery, following a traumatic brain injury, and how she charted her way back. Cinelle was last in the Main Reading Room to support our Inaugural Book Drop launch in September of 2024, and we could not be more humbled to support this exciting launch.

If you are unable to attend the event but would like to purchase one or more signed copies, please visit Buxton Books.

Please note, we’ve updated our ticketing system—purchases now go through Neon Events for a smoother registration experience. For any issues, please call our Front Desk at 843-723-9912.

About the Book

In 2023, Cinelle Barnes is writing a travelogue about journeying home to the Philippines after a twenty-year separation when she suffers a traumatic brain injury. Cinelle’s 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. Cinelle has to not only piece together who she used to be but also struggle to learn who she is here and now. In this memoir of resilience and recovery, Cinelle 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.

About the Author

Cinelle Barnes is the Philippine-born author of Monsoon Mansion: A Memoir, Malaya: Essays on Freedom, and A Way Home: A Memoir of Losing Yourself and the Beauty of Returning. She is also the editor of the New York Times “New and Noteworthy” A Measure of Belonging: Twenty-One Writers of Color on the New American South. Cinelle is a survivor of a brain aneurysm rupture and sits on the Brain Injury Leadership Council of South Carolina, and is the recipient of awards and fellowships from the Sustainable Arts Fund, the Authors League Fund, the National Endowment for the Arts, South Arts, and the North American Travel Journalists Association, among others. She has served on the jury panels for several literary awards, including the inaugural Pulitzer Prize for Memoir. Her writing has appeared in Coastal Living, Travel + Leisure, Buzzfeed, Catapult, Electric Literature, and Longreads, among others. Cinelle lives in Charleston, SC, with her husband, daughter, and cat.