The Cancer Journals
By: Audre Lorde
Nonfiction. Memoir. Feminism. Essays. Queer.
Breast cancer is the most common cancer in women in the United States and it is something that I live in fear of. Not crippling or paralyzing fear but I hold my breath when doing my monthly self-exams and started getting mammograms in my 30’s, just in case. Audre Lorde, poet, activist, feminist details her journey from finding a lump to recovery from her mastectomy in “The Cancer Journals”, published in 1980.
Through journal entries, lectures and essays, Lorde speaks to the experience of undergoing treatment for breast cancer as a black, queer American woman in a way that is both challenging and relatable.
I am always interested in the perspectives of those facing death within the modern medical system, especially from marginalized groups. What makes this book particularly astounding is the candidness with which Lorde speaks to death anxiety. Also remarkable is the way she indicts the patriarchal undergirding of our American system for expecting breast cancer survivors to camouflage the evidence of their treatment instead of addressing the increasing rate of carcinogens that are impacting the health of women.
This beautiful little book is only 3 chapters and 77 pages. But it is full of elegant wisdom bolstered by steel integrity. Here is an excerpt that I’ve underlined and highlighted into near illegibility:
The Cancer Journals Revisited by Lana Lin.
“What is there possibly left for us to be afraid of, after we have dealt face to face with death and not embraced it? Once I accept the existence of dying as a life process, who can ever have power over me again?”.
Check out Audre Lorde’s “The Cancer Journals” for an account of a breast cancer survivor with a uniquely feminist perspective. Even if you have not been touched by breast cancer, her critique of the way we collectively view women, their bodies, their health and their values is an essential read.