
The Cancer Journals
Penguin Publishing Group · Print & ebook · October 13, 2020
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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
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For younger readers: Bless the Blood, How I Discovered Poetry, SHOUT
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Start with this bookAbout 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 Medicine | 45% |
|---|---|
| Cancer | 30% |
| LGBTQ+ Lives | 30% |
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