The Cancer Journals by Audre Lorde

The Cancer Journals

Audre Lorde

Penguin Publishing Group · Print & ebook · October 13, 2020

A Nonfiction pick for readers exploring The Cancer Journals.

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Who it’s for
Personal reflection and political argument meet in Lorde’s clear-eyed writing on illness, identity, and self-definition.
Themes
Breast cancer and mastectomy, Women's body-image conformity, Grief, resistance, and self-definition
Genres
Lives in Medicine, Cancer, LGBTQ+ Lives

About this book

Moving between journal entry, memoir, and exposition, Audre Lorde fuses the personal and political as she reflects on her experience coping with breast cancer and a radical mastectomy. A Penguin Classic First published over forty years ago, The Cancer Journals is a startling, powerful account of Audre Lorde's experience with breast cancer and mastectomy.

Continue reading

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.

Body and Voice

Personal reflection and political argument meet in Lorde’s clear-eyed writing on illness, identity, and self-definition.

Come here for

  • A feminist account that joins private experience with public resistance
  • Language for thinking about body image, loss, and visibility

Expect

  • A layered blend of journal, memoir, and exposition
  • Grief and courage expressed in direct, poetic prose

Where it sits

Lives in Medicine45%
Cancer30%
LGBTQ+ Lives30%

Percentages are BookFrontier’s reading of the book.

Publisher categories

  • Personal Memoirs
  • Cancer
  • Feminist Theory & Criticism
Authors
Audre Lorde
Publisher
Penguin Publishing Group
Published
October 13, 2020
Format
Print & ebook
Theme
Breast cancer and mastectomy · Women's body-image conformity · Grief, resistance, and self-definition
Reading lane
Personal Memoirs