When Denise Desautels traveled to Italy in 1988 to write about Michel Goulet’s art installations at the 43rd Venice Art Biennale, she brought with her the autobiographical themes to which she frequently returns in her writing: memory, childhood, mourning. As she circled Goulet’s sculptures and moved through the City of Masks, Desautels sought to look beyond their facades, exploring relationships between language, silence, place, and the self, much like Ingeborg Bachmann in Fr