The Cancer Journals: Special Edition | 
 enlarge | Author: Audre Lorde
Publisher: Aunt Lute Books
Category: Book
List Price: $12.95
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Rating:  5 reviews
Sales Rank: 85681
Media: Paperback
Edition: Special
Pages: 104
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 8.1 x 5.4 x 0.6
ISBN: 1879960737
Dewey Decimal Number: 809
EAN: 9781879960732
ASIN: 1879960737
Publication Date: September 1, 2006
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Amazon.com Review
First published in 1980, this new edition brings together posthumous tributes to Lorde from such writers and poets as Margaret Randall, Jewelle Gomez, and Barbara Smith, among others. The forthrightness and ferocity with which Audre Lorde greeted every social injustice is in full force in this courageous exploration of her breast cancer and mastectomy. Using the journal, memoir, and essay forms, Lorde gives voice to her "feelings and thoughts about the travesty of prosthesis, the pain of amputation, the function of cancer in a profit economy, confrontation with mortality, the strength of women loving, and the power and rewards of self-conscious living." Lorde powerfully weaves together the three literary forms, allowing her to leap from raw expressions of pain to her inimitably astute social observations. Lorde began writing her journal entries six months after her radical mastectomy; they illustrate her process of integrating the crisis into her life, retelling her experience from detection to follow-up therapies. Lorde's most passionate battle was waged against silence. "This is it, Audre," Lorde wrote. "You're on your own." Where was the model? she asked, seeking another voice to speak to her experience. In The Cancer Journals, Audre Lorde has given us a rich, powerful model that is, alas, still relevant.
Product Description
"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 forthrightness and ferocity with which Audre Lorde greeted every social injustice is in full force in this courageous exploration."-Amazon.com
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. Includes photos and tributes to Lorde written after her death in 1992.
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| Customer Reviews:
Thought provoking September 12, 2007
Dr.JNixt (Mid-Town, USA)
Audre Lorde gives a good idea of exactly what she's feeling in her journals, even down to the negative aspects of her disease that some would more than likely keep to themselves. I appreciate her frankness and willingness to open up to other women thinking the same things.
The thoughts bounced around a bit but overall I appreciate her putting her journey into words.
 Courageous Memoir November 10, 2006
Linda Benninghoff (Lloyd Harbor, New York United States)
Lorde's book will be of interest to those battling breast cancer and feminists, but also to anyone wanting to learn from a difficult experience. Lorde teaches us how to speak out against the injuustices done women, what it's like to survive in a hostile, male-chauvinist universe. Although the book is sad the wisdom it contains readily makes up for its difficcult content. Lorde's struggle is successful because she manages to rise above the difficulties caused by breast cancer--being one-breasted, for example--and overcome them. Her book is visionary.
 A survivor , but not a believer in this... June 26, 2006
Levi (Germantown, MD United States)
1 out of 3 found this review helpful
I think this is an important book for breast cancer survivors to read. It has made me think about a lot of things regarding my recovering.
However, I can't help but feel...how? Inferior? Shallow? Like a wimp? I can't even think of a word for it...for choosing to wear a prosthesis and for looking forward to my reconstruction. As if somehow, if I was a better woman or I was a better feminist or a braver survivor I could say, "Forget it!" and walk around the world proudly showing off my one-breasted-ness under my t-shirt.
This book is important because it's made me think hard about my post-cancer decisions. However, in the long run, I don't believe Lorde's opinions, experiences, and observations will be helpful for my continued survival.
If you have chosen to wear a prothesis or to get reconstruction, don't look to this book for affirmation, you will just get judgement, although Lorde opines that it is not her *intent* to judge.
I also think this book needs to be read in context of the time it was written. Breast cancer care has come a long way in the last 20 years. Lorde's belief that chemotherapy and radiation are in themselves carcinogenic may be true in the most extreme situation, in the most narrow sense, but nowadays the benefits by far outweigh the risks. Thousands upon thousands of survivors are around to attest to that.
Sadly, maybe I'm not feminist enough or woman enough to risk my life in order to make the personal political, to prove a point. In reading "The Cancer Journals", I found that Audre Lorde was. And even though it wasn't all doom and gloom, and despite her joyful exultation of the loving women that cared for her, at the end of the book I found it all a little too sad.
It's a great tool in overcomming the fear of breast cancer. December 15, 1998
I cried through most of this book. Not out of pity for what Audre was going through, but simply because I have seldom seen anyone face such a crisis with such nobility and strength. On some level I think we all fear breast cancer. This book took the terror out of it for me and made me feel that if I were to end up with cancer that I would somehow come through it okay. Audre demonstrates that no matter how bad things get there is something to be learned and gained by the experience. She is a very inspiring and admirable women. She deals with the issue from both a practical, political, intellectual standpoint as well as an emotional one. I would recomend this book for anyone who has, or knows anyone with cancer, and for anyone who simply gets overwhelmed by the thought of someday getting breast cancer.She took on a tough and painful subject with the sensitivity and style of the poet she was , and gave us some wisdom to live by.
 Striking continuation of food-fest/allegorical galcommentary October 3, 1998
5 out of 27 found this review helpful
Following on the tremendously sensual roast-beef scene in Zami, Lourde here rejects beef after coming to terms with the oppressive white system that probably imposed hormone-ridden substandard products on people of colour. I think this is very brave. I'd like to propose that in memory of Lourde all self-respecting womyn reject mass-produced beef products. A great book. And very eye-opening.
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