Cancer Journals

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Audre Lorde: Cancer Journals (2020, Penguin Books, Limited)

96 pages

English language

Published 2020 by Penguin Books, Limited.

ISBN:
978-0-241-45350-6
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5 stars (1 review)

First published over forty years ago, The Cancer Journals is a startling, powerful account of Audre Lorde’s experience with breast cancer and mastectomy. Long before narratives explored the silences around illness and women’s pain, Lorde questioned the rules of conformity for women’s body images and supported the need to confront physical loss not hidden by prosthesis.

Living as a “black, lesbian, mother, warrior, poet,” Lorde heals and re-envisions herself on her own terms and offers her voice, grief, resistance, and courage to those dealing with their own diagnosis. Poetic and profoundly feminist, Lorde’s testament gives visibility and strength to women with cancer to define themselves, and to transform their silence into language and action.

12 editions

reviewed Cancer Journals by Audre Lorde

Review of 'Cancer Journals' on 'Storygraph'

5 stars

I don't think I'll ever recover from reading this book. I was so overwhelmed by the love and warmth which flooded through its pages, the power of love and friendship between women amidst so much pain, and how we are constantly learning as we move through life. I'm so glad I read Zami beforehand as I could trace the characters, the memories. I'll just leave this quote here:

“Growing up Fat Black Female and almost blind in america requires so much surviving that you have to learn from it or die. Gennie, rest in peace. I carry tattooed upon my heart a list of names of women who did not survive and there is always a space left for one more, my own. That is to remind me that even survival is only part of the task. The other part is teaching. I had been in training for a long …