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Guide: Books on Disability/ Chronic Illnesses/ Neurodiversity/ etc.
This is a living list with works which deal with disability and/ or chronical illness and/or Deafness and/or neurodiversity and/or mental illness and more. It’s about disability rights and movements, about ableism, about survival and solidarity, about pain and grief, and about joy and care. A lot of the descriptions here are taken from reviews I have shared on Instagram and thus vary in style, length and approach. Obviously, this list is not complete as it only reflects my reading (and only what I remember I have read). Nonetheless, I hope this list ist helpful. “Disability is adaptive, interconnected, tenacious, voracious, slutty, silent,raging, life giving” ‑ Leah Lakshmi Piepzna‑Samarasinha “You…
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Moving Through the World (Happy?) Fat
Last year in July, I almost fainted when I saw Danish UK-based comedian Sofie Hagen perform in Berlin. Now my near collapsing wasn’t so much swooning – though Sofie Hagen might merit that – but due to being stuck in a very small, very hot, and pretty much void of oxygen venue. But still, in the end, I was very glad I had persevered because Hagen’s show made me laugh full heartedly, giggle, and tear up. In a short amount of time, Hagen managed to tell a story of growing up in Denmark, the relationship to her body, and the experience of sexualized violence. Before that performance, I had watched…
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5 Reasons Why I Loved Namwali Serpell’s The Old Drift
In 2009, Namwali Serpell’s short story “Muzungu” published in Callaloo was selected for The Best American Short Stories 2009 and a year later it was shortlisted for the Caine Prize for African Writing (a prize she would go on winning five years later). Now, this story – reworked – sits in the middle of Serpell’s spellbinding, epic 560-pages long debut novel The Old Drift. After having finished it, I felt like I had just read five different books. It is so rich, brimming with ideas, fantastical in it turns. While I am still gathering all my thoughts (for a more thorough review published elsewhere) and already planning a re-read, I want to share…
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“All the ghosts of life/ assemble before us”
This March started with a bang for poetry. On the first day of the month, University Press of Nebraska published Tjawangwa Dema’s debut collection The Careless Seamstress and Mahtem Shiferraw’s sophomore collection Your Body is War as part of the African Poetry Book Series. Both poets are deeply invested in interrogating the ways women experience this world and crafting a specific language and imagery to capture these experiences. Tjawangwa Dema’s chapbook Mandible had been included in the box set Seven New Generation African Poets five years ago – other poets of that group like Warsan Shire, Nick Makoha, and Ladan Osman have also gone on to publish celebrated works since. Now it is Dema’s turn…
