
Strangeland
A special 20th anniversary edition of one of Britain's most acclaimed artist's memoir
Tracey Emin(Author)
Sceptre (Publisher)
Published on 9. October 2025
Book
Hardback
240 pages
978-1-3997-4839-1 (ISBN)
Description
'Honest and extraordinary' GUARDIAN
'A remarkable book - and an original, beautiful mind' EVENING STANDARD
Here I am, a fucked, crazy, anorexic-alcoholic-childless, beautiful woman. I never dreamed it would be like this.
Welcome to Strangeland.
The incandescent world of Tracey Emin.
Encompassing the Margate of her childhood, the Turkey of her forefathers and the art-filled chaos of her thirty-something life in London.
Intimate and original, these confessions are deeply moving. In spite of the challenges she faces, Tracey remains profoundly romantic and uncompromisingly honest. Here is her life on the page.
This twentieth-anniversary edition, with a new introduction from Emin herself, celebrates the formative memories of one of Britain's greatest contemporary artists.
'Beautiful . . . unguarded, open-hearted, shocking' DAILY TELEGRAPH
'Painfully honest' JEANETTE WINTERSON, THE TIMES
'A remarkable book - and an original, beautiful mind' EVENING STANDARD
Here I am, a fucked, crazy, anorexic-alcoholic-childless, beautiful woman. I never dreamed it would be like this.
Welcome to Strangeland.
The incandescent world of Tracey Emin.
Encompassing the Margate of her childhood, the Turkey of her forefathers and the art-filled chaos of her thirty-something life in London.
Intimate and original, these confessions are deeply moving. In spite of the challenges she faces, Tracey remains profoundly romantic and uncompromisingly honest. Here is her life on the page.
This twentieth-anniversary edition, with a new introduction from Emin herself, celebrates the formative memories of one of Britain's greatest contemporary artists.
'Beautiful . . . unguarded, open-hearted, shocking' DAILY TELEGRAPH
'Painfully honest' JEANETTE WINTERSON, THE TIMES
Reviews / Votes
Her writings are painfully honest . . . Strangeland is more than Tracey's diary, just as her bed and her tent and her blankets are more than private displays that happen to have attracted a lot of attention * The Times * While her best-known art has shown Emin at her most confrontational, in her writing we meet a calmer, more sensitive soul. * Observer * A fantastically engaging storyteller . . . heartbreaking . . . effortlessly funny * Metro * As spare and poignant as one of Emin's line drawings * Marie Claire * Eccentrically readable * Glamour * Frequently affecting . . . read Emin for intriguing, almost incantatory sections on her travels to Turkey, the occasional shaft of two-fingers-up-at-the-world wit and the delight of seeing someone revel in vicious vengefulness * Daily Telegraph * Reveals a funny, sensitive and brave woman, challenging conventions * Grazia * Emin talks with brutal frankness . . . genuinely uplifting * Scotsman * An extraordinary piece of writing . . . Brace yourself. Let's say this is a memoir (and most of the time, it is, although her relationship to the truth is variable: incidents described here have been contradicted by her elsewhere); it couldn't be filmed. The director and half the cast would be arrested . . . she has played the hand she has been dealt as skilfully and tenaciously as anyone could have, while still retaining a belief in beauty. And Strangeland comes over as honest and extraordinary * Guardian * Written with a furious energy * Guardian * A raw and uncompromising read . . . but it is also a tale of hope and inspiration . . . her writings, a combination of memoirs and confessions, are deeply intimate, yet powerfully engaging. Tracey retains a profoundly romantic world view, paired with an uncompromising honesty. Her capacity both to create controversies and to strike chords is unequalled in British life. A remarkable book - and an original, beautiful mind * Evening Standard * A very readable book, and a surprising one too * Independent on Sunday * [An] odd and powerful memoir -- Marina Warner * London Review of Books * A combination of memoir and confession and gives an insight into the mind of one of contemporary art's most intriguing figures * Evening Standard * Beautiful . . . as vivid a piece of writing about a childhood as you could hope to read - unguarded, open-hearted, shocking -- Chris Harvey * Daily Telegraph * Strangeland is a surprisingly lyrical and tightly written account of its author's journey so far * Australian Vogue * Poignant and sensitive * Stylist * Emin writes with fierce clarity * Times Literary Supplement * An extremely well-written and readable book * Glasgow Herald * Strangeland should not . . . be approached as a memoir unless a memoir can be understood to be a Tracey Emin artwork. She is no fake -- Rachel Cusk * Sunday Telegraph * Magical * Sunday Times *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Hodder & Stoughton
Product notice
Trade binding
Dimensions
Height: 224 mm
Width: 147 mm
Thickness: 27 mm
Weight
344 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-3997-4839-1 (9781399748391)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

E-Book
05/2013
Two Roads
€3.99
Available for download
Person
Tracey Emin was born in 1963 to an English mother and Turkish father, and grew up in Margate. She left school at 15, but later studied Fine Art at Maidstone and went on to the Royal College of Art. She is now an internationally renowned artist whose work has been exhibited in museums and galleries throughout the world. Although known as a visual artist, Tracey Emin's confessional writings have always formed the backbone to her work and in 2005 she published her memoir, Strangeland, drawing together new and revised work from the previous 25 years.
In 2007, she was elected as a Royal Academician by the Royal Academy of Arts, where she is now a Professor of Drawing and in 2013 she was appointed CBE.
In 2007, she was elected as a Royal Academician by the Royal Academy of Arts, where she is now a Professor of Drawing and in 2013 she was appointed CBE.