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No Is Not a Lonely Utterance: The Art and Activism of Complaining
Brought to you by Penguin.
A moving exploration of the solace and power of listening in an unjust world, from the author of The Feminist Killjoy Handbook
‘Behind many disasters are unheard complaints’
To complain is an intimate, dangerous act. Whether it’s speaking up about racism in the workplace or taking a stand against sexual harassment at university, the act of complaining to an institution can leave you isolated and undermined, all while the original injustice remains unresolved. Time and time again, we see these unanswered complaints compound to disastrous effect.
In No is Not a Lonely Utterance, Sara Ahmed dissects the anatomy of a complaint, revealing how institutions create hostile environments that stigmatize complainers, and charts a way we can listen to grievances with ‘feminist ears’: going beyond mere validation and seeking instead to address the root causes of injustice and inequality.
Weaving together testimonies from various walks of life, Ahmed shows us what we learn about the ways institutions exercise their power when complaints are raised, and indeed what we learn about our capacity to collectivize and create social bonds through complaint. In doing so, she inspires us to create better environments for our life’s work.
Sara Ahmed 2025 (P) Penguin Audio 2025
A moving exploration of the solace and power of listening in an unjust world, from the author of The Feminist Killjoy Handbook
‘Behind many disasters are unheard complaints’
To complain is an intimate, dangerous act. Whether it’s speaking up about racism in the workplace or taking a stand against sexual harassment at university, the act of complaining to an institution can leave you isolated and undermined, all while the original injustice remains unresolved. Time and time again, we see these unanswered complaints compound to disastrous effect.
In No is Not a Lonely Utterance, Sara Ahmed dissects the anatomy of a complaint, revealing how institutions create hostile environments that stigmatize complainers, and charts a way we can listen to grievances with ‘feminist ears’: going beyond mere validation and seeking instead to address the root causes of injustice and inequality.
Weaving together testimonies from various walks of life, Ahmed shows us what we learn about the ways institutions exercise their power when complaints are raised, and indeed what we learn about our capacity to collectivize and create social bonds through complaint. In doing so, she inspires us to create better environments for our life’s work.
Sara Ahmed 2025 (P) Penguin Audio 2025
Audible Audio
Published September 18, 2025
About the author
Sara Ahmed
57 books1,811 followersSara Ahmed is an independent queer feminist scholar of colour. Her work is concerned with how power is experienced and challenged in everyday life and institutional cultures. Her most recent book is No is Not a Lonely Utterance: The Art and Activism of Complaining which came out with Allen Lane in September 2025, and which is a companion text to The Feminist Killjoy Handbook which was published by Allen Lane in 2023. Previous books include Complaint! (2021), What's The Use? On the Uses of Use (2019), Living a Feminist Life (2017), Willful Subjects (2014), On Being Included: Racism and Diversity in Institutional Life (2012), The Promise of Happiness (2010) and Queer Phenomenology: Orientations Objects, Others all published by Duke University Press. She blogs at feministkilljoys.com and has a newsletter https://feministkilljoys.substack.com/.
Ratings & Reviews
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
November 18, 2025
“In killjoy solidarity with everyone complaining for a more just world!
Sara xx”
Protect Sara Ahmed at all costs 🙂↕️
Loved listening to her talk about this book also!
Sara xx”
Protect Sara Ahmed at all costs 🙂↕️
Loved listening to her talk about this book also!
June 7, 2026
A well-written piece of how to complain and how we can get solace from that sole action even if we think it results in no action/ response at all. Although these are quite serious (to put it mildly) complaints especially around sexual assault and DEI issues, we see how one person's discomfort can lead to the removal/ change of an abuser; whether a person, organisation or system.
July 8, 2026
Que importante reivindicar la queja. La queja como activismo político contra las instituciones, como punto de partida para colectivos y relaciones, como forma de insistir tercamente contra muros e instituciones rígidas, calculadas, opresoras. Tacatá tacatá. La queja como peso en el cuerpo, como secreto, como grito, como insistencia, como desgaste, como lecciones de poder, como tensión. La queja para dejar ver los problemas, pues no nos quejaríamos si la razón de la queja no existiera en primer lugar.
Sara Ahmed es increíble.
“Coming out is not a one time thing, it usually happens in circles.”
“Disobedience is indeed what we need in face of the rapid rise of authoritarism.”
“Small gestures of acceptance can make a difference to those who haven’t been accepted.”
“No is a small word with a lot of work to do.”
Sara Ahmed es increíble.
“Coming out is not a one time thing, it usually happens in circles.”
“Disobedience is indeed what we need in face of the rapid rise of authoritarism.”
“Small gestures of acceptance can make a difference to those who haven’t been accepted.”
“No is a small word with a lot of work to do.”
April 19, 2026
I firstly want to thank the publisher and author for giving me the chance to listen to this audio book in advance.
I believe it can either go very well or very poorly when an author narrates their own book. This is an example of it going very well. There was emotion and depth to the narration that sparkled at certain points that really helps the reader resonate with the issues being spoken about that could only be highlig hted and portrayed as eloquently in emotionally as it was due to that person having lived that experience first hand.
I believe it can either go very well or very poorly when an author narrates their own book. This is an example of it going very well. There was emotion and depth to the narration that sparkled at certain points that really helps the reader resonate with the issues being spoken about that could only be highlig hted and portrayed as eloquently in emotionally as it was due to that person having lived that experience first hand.
April 5, 2026
4.5*
An important reminder that speaking up can change the trajectory of things. This book details the hows, whys, and whens of speaking out about important social topics. It kind of goes along the lines of "see something, say something" and "representation matters." It definitely gave me more courage to speak up when things don't feel or seem right in a variety of settings.
Thank you to @netgalley for my ALC read by the author.
An important reminder that speaking up can change the trajectory of things. This book details the hows, whys, and whens of speaking out about important social topics. It kind of goes along the lines of "see something, say something" and "representation matters." It definitely gave me more courage to speak up when things don't feel or seem right in a variety of settings.
Thank you to @netgalley for my ALC read by the author.
March 15, 2026
I got the most out of the really exceptional introduction. All of the following chapters seemed to directly build off of the ideas introduced in the introduction (go figure) through anecdotal stories, which make the work very readable. I think maybe it was good that the body of this work wasn’t set up to be easily sifted through for extractive purposes, but instead it is a body that is meant to be sit with.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews