Name: The Cancer Journals
Rating: 4.714285714285714 (14 reviews)
ISBN: 9780241453506

Audre Lorder

'A brave, beautiful book that could double as a handbook to accompany anyone on their journey through cancer' Jackie Kay, New Statesman

The Cancer Journals is an intimate, poetic and invigorating account of the experience of breast cancer, from biopsy to mastectomy, told by the great feminist and activist Audre Lorde.

Moving between journal entry, memoir, and essay, Lorde fuses the personal and political to reflect on the many questions breast cancer raises: questions of survival, sexuality, prosthesis and self-care. It is a journey of survival, friendship, and self-acceptance. 

'Grief, terror, courage, the passion for survival and for more than survival, are here in the searchings of a great poet' Adrienne Rich

'This book teaches me that with one breast or none, I am still me' Alice Walker

The Cancer Journals

joana ashley

Self scrutiny and an evaluation of our lives, while painful, can be rewarding and strengthening journeys toward a deeper self. For as we open ourselves more and more to the genuine conditions of our lives, women become less and less willing to tolerate those conditions unaltered, or to passively accept external and destructive controls over our lives and our identities.

I have come to believe over and over again that what is most important to me must be spoken, made verbal and shared, even at the risk of having it bruised or misunderstood. That the speaking profits me, beyond any other effect.

In his eyes, obviously, this better quality of life will come, not through a woman learning to come to terms with her living and dying and her own personal power, but rather through her wearing a 'normal' bra.

For to survive in the mouth of this dragon we call america, we have had to learn this first and most vital lesson - that we were never meant to live. Not as human beings. And neither were most of you here today, Black or not. And that visibility which makes us vulnerable is that which also is the source of our greatest strength. Because the machine will try to grind you into dust anyway, whether or not we speak. We can sit in our corners mute forever while our sisters and our selves are wasted, while our children are distorted and destroyed, while our earth is poisoned, we can sit in our safe corners mute as bottles, and we still will be no less afraid.

Dora Tominic

I dreamt I had begun training to change my life, with a teacher who is very shadowy. I was not attending classes, but I was going to learn how to change my whole life, live differently, do everything in a new and different way. I didn't really understand, but I trusted this shadowy teacher. Another young woman who was there told me she was taking a course in "language crazure", the opposite of discrazure (the cracking and wearing away of rock). I thought it would be very interesting to study the formation and crack and composure of words, so I told my teacher I wanted to take that course. My teacher said okay, but it wasn't going to help me any because I had to learn something else, and I wouldn't get anything new from that class. I replied maybe not, but even though I knew all about rocks, for instance, I still liked studying their composition, and giving a name to the different ingredients of which they were made. It's very exciting to think of me being all the people in this dream. 

audre lorde always always always had the right words. it does not serve living. 

aisha

The status of untouchable is a very unreal and lonely one, although it keeps everyone at arm's length, and protects as it insulates. But you can die of that specialness, of the cold, the isolation. It does not serve living. 

Tabea

The idea of knowing, rather than believing, trusting, or even understanding, has always been considered heretical. But I would willingly pay whatever price in pain was needed, to savor the weight of completion; to be utterly filled, not with conviction nor with faith, but with experience--knowledge, direct and different from all other certainties.

Disclaimer: this is not a review.

Ghost of a breast.

There's just so many meaningful passages in this book from Audre Lorde that I feel like highlighting here. The Cancer Journals is a powerful meditation on living as a woman with a cancer that is claimed to sacrifice a woman's femininity in order to live (which is an insane thing to say). This is actually the first of Audre Lorde's works that I have gotten the chance to read and I am in awe of her ruminations and insight of the politics of women's bodies, especially when their lives are at stake.

In this collection of journal entries and essays following her experience in being diagnosed and treated for breast cancer, Audre Lorde reflects deeply on mortality, femininity, sexuality, and the need to act now with the time we have. After losing her right breast, she reflects on the feeling of this loss that can never be replicated or replaced by prosthesis. She describes instances of others feeling uncomfortable by her decisions to not use fake bra fillers made of lambswool or silicone, of medical staff appearing to be more concerned with the appearance of her chest rather than the fact that she had just battled death itself.

Here, she assures women to allow themselves to feel, to grieve this loss. She calls to confront and scrutinize our own lives as they become drastically changed. She calls for women to take charge of their lives and push through fear, to take what little we have and SPEAK for what's better for us and the women around us. Our very lives are political, and we must push for them to be valued as they should be.

"For to survive in the mouth of this dragon we call america, we have had to learn this first and most vital lesson - that we were never meant to live. Not as human beings. And neither were most of you here today, Black or not. And that visibility which makes us vulnerable is that which also is the source of our greatest strength. Because the machine will try to grind you into dust anyway, whether or not we speak. We can sit in our corners mute forever while our sisters and our selves are wasted, while our children are distorted and destroyed, while our earth is poisoned, we can sit in our safe corners mute as bottles, and we still will be no less afraid."

There's just so many meaningful passages in this book from Audre Lorde that I feel like highlighting here. The Cancer Journals is a powerful meditation on living as a woman with a cancer that is claimed to sacrifice a woman's femininity in order to live (which is an insane thing to say). This is actually the first of Audre Lorde's works that I have gotten the chance to read and I am in awe of her ruminations and insight of the politics of women's bodies, especially when their lives are at stake.

In this collection of journal entries and essays following her experience in being diagnosed and treated for breast cancer, Audre Lorde reflects deeply on mortality, femininity, sexuality, and the need to act now with the time we have. After losing her right breast, she reflects on the feeling of this loss that can never be replicated or replaced by prosthesis. She describes instances of others feeling uncomfortable by her decisions to not use fake bra fillers made of lambswool or silicone, of medical staff appearing to be more concerned with the appearance of her chest rather than the fact that she had just battled death itself.

Here, she assures women to allow themselves to feel, to grieve this loss. She calls to confront and scrutinize our own lives as they become drastically changed. She calls for women to take charge of their lives and push through fear, to take what little we have and SPEAK for what's better for us and the women around us. Our very lives are political, and we must push for them to be valued as they should be.

"For to survive in the mouth of this dragon we call america, we have had to learn this first and most vital lesson - that we were never meant to live. Not as human beings. And neither were most of you here today, Black or not. And that visibility which makes us vulnerable is that which also is the source of our greatest strength. Because the machine will try to grind you into dust anyway, whether or not we speak. We can sit in our corners mute forever while our sisters and our selves are wasted, while our children are distorted and destroyed, while our earth is poisoned, we can sit in our safe corners mute as bottles, and we still will be no less afraid."

Audre Lorde

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. 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.

annalyse! 

“i would never have chosen this path, but i am very glad to be who i am, here.” 


absolutely incredible.

I love reading Lorde. She finds ways of speaking about senstions - in this case her masectomy - in such a daring and beauitfully heartfelt way. I see my own feelings reflected in her observations. She channels her hurt, turmoil and creates beauty with it. 

antonia maria wagner she/they

The Cancer Journal

Celina Gacias

'A brave, beautiful book that could double as a handbook to accompany anyone on their journey through cancer' Jackie Kay, New Statesman The Cancer Journals is an intimate, poetic and invigorating account of the experience of breast cancer, from biopsy to mastectomy, told by the great feminist and activist Audre Lorde. Moving between journal entry, memoir, and essay, Lorde fuses the personal and political to reflect on the many questions breast cancer raises: questions of survival, sexuality, prosthesis and self-care. It is a journey of survival, friendship, and self-acceptance. 'Grief, terror, courage, the passion for survival and for more than survival, are here in the searchings of a great poet' Adrienne Rich 'This book teaches me that with one breast or none, I am still me' Alice Walker

Catherine Nicolai

I would never have chosen this path, but I am very glad to be who I am, here. The Cancer Journals is an intimate, poetic and invigorating account of the experience of breast cancer, from biopsy to mastectomy, told by the great feminist and activist Audre Lorde. Moving between journal entry, memoir, and essay, Lorde fuses the personal and political to reflect on the many questions breast cancer raises: questions of survival, sexuality, prosthesis and self-care. It is a journey of survival, friendship, and self-acceptance. Grief, terror, courage, the passion for survival and for more than survival, are here in the searchings of a great poet. Adrienne Rich This book teaches me that with one breast or none, I am still me Alice Walker

Olivia

Claire Matthews 

Ana Hein

Iris Emily

Archer

Julia A.

"Moving between journal, memoir, and exposition, Audre Lorde fuses the personal and political and refuses the silencing and invisibility that she experienced both as a woman facing her own death and as a woman coping with the loss of her breast."--BOOK JACKET.

The Cancer Journals

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