The Cancer Journals

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

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

Author Biography

Audre Lorde was a writer, feminist and civil rights activist – or, as she famously put it, ‘Black, lesbian, mother, warrior, poet’. Born in New York in 1934, she had her first poem published while she was still in high school. After stints as a factory worker, ghost writer, social worker, X-ray technician, medical clerk, and arts and crafts supervisor, she became a librarian in Manhattan and gradually rose to prominence as a poet, essayist and speaker, anthologised by Langston Hughes, lauded by Adrienne Rich, and befriended by James Baldwin. She was made Poet Laureate of New York State in 1991, when she was awarded the Walt Whitman prize; she was also awarded honorary doctorates from Hunter, Oberlin and Haverford colleges. She died of cancer in 1992, aged 58.