The World Imagined is a coming of age tale for all adults who never forgot the fragile brilliance and lurking terrors of being a child. As a girl keenly aware of her difference, yet lacking access to the history that would place her, Judith Slater moves through illnesses and frailties, finding herself a brave Diana, guardian of the forests, and later, a woman with the strength to seek the very past that eluded her. Throughout this tender, utterly authentic book, we see astute portraits of childhood hyper-vigilance, as well as a soul’s fierce joy. Slater writes with the subtle care of a poet, in language that is acutely sensitive and lyrically moving. She not only “discovers a self in the world” (and a profound self it is) but imagines one into being. —Lia Purpura