Stories of Illness and Healing: Women Write Their Bodies

Literature and Medicine

by Sayantani DasGupta (editor), Marsh Hurst (editor)

Stories of Illness and Healing is the first collection to place the voices of women experiencing illness alongside analytical writing from prominent scholars in the field of narrative medicine. The collection includes a variety of women's illness narratives-poetry, essays, short fiction, short drama, analyses, and transcribed oral testimonies-as well as traditional analytic essays about themes and issues raised by the narratives. Stories of Illness and Healing bridges the artificial divide between women's lives and scholarship in gender, health, and medicine.

The authors of these narratives are diverse in age, ethnicity, family situation, sexual orientation, and economic status. They are doctors, patients, spouses, mothers, daughters, activists, writers, educators, and performers. The narratives serve to acknowledge that women's illness experiences are more than their diseases, that they encompass their entire lives. The pages of this book echo with personal accounts of illness, diagnosis, and treatment. They reflect the social constructions of women's bodies, their experiences of sexuality and reproduction, and their roles as professional and family caregivers. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, Stories of Illness and Healing draws the connection between women's suffering and advocacy for women's lives.

Genres: Nonfiction, Health, Memoir, Medicine, Writing

352 pages, Paperback

First published September 4, 2007

Reviews

[Marta · Rating 4 out of 5]

I bought this because the owner of East Line Books in Clifton Park has an essay in it. I bought it for Betsy with the plan that I would get Tina a copy later. I've been reading the essays at random and it's so good. I still plan on getting Betsy, Tina, and Monica copies.

I never finished all of the essays, but I read about 50% of them. Enough to be amazed, impressed, inspired by the essays. I recommend this to any woman (person?) who is interested in health or medicine.

[Renée Davis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent. I could not put this down. This is an incredible anthology, a rich looking glass into narrative medicine and medical anthropology (without the anthro speak).