One, my favorite, is by capturing what happens to Yasira’s mind and personhood when she finally gets the courage to trust her instincts and touch the light that will take her into the Outside. So how do you put something that can’t be described at the center of your story? Hoffman does this brilliantly in a couple of ways. … It is the most beautiful thing in the universe, and the most terrible, and the ugliest - and, of course, it is not “in the universe” at all. It is literally impossible to describe what I mean, what I have experienced, as the very nature of that thing is to transcend verbal concepts. One of the initial descriptions of the Outside comes from Evianna Talirr, Yasira’s mentor, who disappears into it but comes back from time to time to help Yasira make the leap with her. That’s one of the reasons the great epic poets always began by invoking supernatural help to find words for the ineffable. Like all attempts to describe an unknowable dimension of the universe, it can’t really be done. And The Outside definitely blasts the mind into a dazzling realm where everything is experienced in completely different ways. I’m always drawn to the way science fiction can portray human consciousness when it blasts into new dimensions of existence. One of her primary tutors was another autistic genius, Evianna Talirr, who has disappeared from the worlds of this universe into the Outside.

Yasira is autistic and has been obsessed with science since childhood, rapidly advancing through the available levels of knowledge to achieve a PhD at an early age. Then there is the scientific genius, Yasira Schien, one of the few who can experience the Outside without falling apart completely, though she comes close.

The Outside by Ada Hoffmann