This content material incorporates affiliate hyperlinks. When you purchase via these hyperlinks, we could earn an affiliate fee.
As a disabled author myself, I believe there isn’t a singular incapacity expertise. These books are as various as their authors, and every individual has a novel perspective on their very own disabilities. Even folks with the similar disabilities have vastly totally different opinions and experiences. I’m all the time considering studying different disabled writers. While there are nice science fiction and fantasy books by disabled authors, I need to focus this listing on fiction and nonfiction that explores incapacity in a extra practical method.
Many of those books embody particular set off warnings; for instance, substance abuse dysfunction, intimate and systemic violence, suicide, surgical procedures and different medical selections, or episodes of psychosis. For a number of causes, incapacity literature could comprise phrases thought of slurs at present. Some of those had been as soon as medical phrases and are introduced of their historic context. Disabled authors may reclaim slurs or depict incidents of ableism verbatim. Many books by disabled authors creatively blur format, incorporating visible artwork, diary entries, medical information, or literary evaluation.
Some authors instantly acknowledge their privilege of their books, which could embody entry to schooling or costly remedies. For disabled folks from the United States, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) and the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) allowed us to entry faculty and different features of public life for the first time. Some of those authors bear in mind these civil rights legal guidelines being handed or supply opinions on methods they could possibly be up to date.
Awards and Literary Journals
There are a number of awards and literary journals which spotlight disabled writers and their work. These embody The Barbellion Prize, a British literary prize for disabled authors open to worldwide entrants. Here in the U.S., the Schneider Family Book Award honors children’ and YA books depicting incapacity.
Literary magazines by and for disabled authors and editors embody Deaf Poets Society, Kaleidoscope, and Wordgathering. I’m proud that every one three of those magazines have revealed a few of my work, however I don’t have any monetary stakes in them. To make them extra accessible, Wordgathering and Deaf Poets Society have posted audio recordings of written items since not less than 2016.
Nonfiction
Year of the Tiger: An Activist’s Life By Alice Wong
Alice Wong was born in 1974, the Year of the Tiger in the Chinese Zodiac. Her memoir was revealed in one other Year of the Tiger, 2022. In the introduction, she describes herself as “a mutant from planet Cripton,” tying her humorousness collectively together with her lifelong love of science fiction and fantasy. She particularly loves the various worlds of Star Trek and X-Men. Born in Indiana to Chinese immigrant mother and father, Wong moved to California for grad faculty, the place she discovered extra accessibility and a bigger Asian American neighborhood. In June 2023, she performed a cartoon, fictionalized character of herself on Netflix’s collection Human Resources.
Disability Visibility: First-Person Stories from the Twenty-First Century edited by Alice Wong
This wonderful anthology from a various group of disabled contributors, contains essays on information canines, balancing spiritual obligations with a incapacity, and the marginalization of Indigenous folks in predominantly white incapacity areas. The ebook facilities on subjects which can be nonetheless stigmatized or not mentioned typically, even in disabled communities, comparable to asexuality, incontinence, mind damage, and cognitive disabilities. Alice Wong based the Disability Visibility Project. Its weblog and podcast acquire disabled folks’s written and oral narratives.
Golem Girl by Riva Lehrer
Lehrer, an activist and visible artist, begins her memoir with etymologies of the phrase “monster.” As a toddler with spina bifida, she associated to Frankenstein’s monster in film diversifications. Her ebook’s title comes from the fable of the golem, created by a rabbi to guard his congregation from persecution. The title ties collectively her id as each Jewish and disabled. Her mom was a nurse at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital, who advocated for her surgical procedures and drugs. Lehrer attended a college for disabled college students in the Nineteen Sixties, earlier than entry to public faculty in the U.S. for disabled college students was legally protected. As an grownup, she labored as a university artwork teacher and painted portraits of fellow activists.
A Face for Picasso by Ariel Henley
The writer and her twin sister, Zan, had been born with Crouzon syndrome, a craniofacial situation, and had a number of life-saving surgical procedures as kids. The title comes from a profile of the twins as kids, by which a journalist wrote, “Their faces resembled the work of Picasso.” Henley turned fascinated with Picasso’s artwork and biography. The memoir discusses Western magnificence requirements and their emphasis on proportions and symmetry, marginalizing folks with facial variations. It additionally follows Henley’s childhood in California and turning into extra impartial by attending school in Vermont.
Mean Baby by Selma Blair
The title “mean baby” displays how adults impose narratives on kids, who’re too younger to control their feelings. Blair has had a profitable appearing profession since the Nineteen Nineties, together with the films Cruel Intentions and Legally Blonde. In 2018, she was recognized with a number of sclerosis. In 2019, she walked down the crimson carpet at the Oscars utilizing a custom-made cane, a second that was significant to many fellow disabled folks. Her 2022 memoir covers her childhood, profession, and prognosis.
Such a Pretty Girl by Nadina LaSpina
Nadina LaSpina was born in Sicily in 1948 and contracted polio as a toddler. Around age 13, she and her household immigrated to the U.S. At an NYC hospital after surgical procedure, she wore a physique solid for nearly a 12 months. She additionally used a wheelchair and made buddies with disabilities for the first time. Like many different disabled authors, she discovered each experiences liberating. As an grownup, she participated in protests with many fellow disabled activists, which led to the passage of the ADA and its precursor, Section 504.
Haben: The Deafblind Woman Who Conquered Harvard Law by Haben Girma
Disability rights advocate and lawyer Haben Girma wrote in the introduction to her memoir: “Communities designed with just one kind of person in mind isolate those of us defying their narrow definition of personhood.” She was born in California to Eritrean immigrant mother and father. In 2013, she turned the first Deafblind graduate of Harvard Law School. She describes working together with her information canine, speaking with assistive expertise, and volunteering to assist construct faculties in Mali.
The Pretty One by Keah Brown
This essay assortment is a superb mixture of private reflection and popular culture evaluation. Brown explains rising up with cerebral palsy and her relationships together with her twin sister and shut buddies. She analyzes her popular culture favorites whereas acknowledging how racism and ableism negatively impacted her self-image. She’s additionally revealed fiction books: Sam’s Super Seats is an image ebook illustrated by Sharee Miller and The Secret Summer Promise is a queer YA romance. Both books have younger, Black protagonists with cerebral palsy.
Brilliant Imperfection: Grappling with Cure by Eli Clare
Cure is a sophisticated, fraught topic in the disabled neighborhood. Each individual has a special perspective on it. This ebook explores the associated ideas of personhood, bodily autonomy, and consent, which systemic oppression typically denies marginalized folks. This ebook gives historic context on the intersection of racism, anti-LGBTQIA hate, and ableism. Examples embody the ableist and racist historical past of circus sideshows and the abuse of Ota Benga, a Mbuti man kidnapped and displayed in the Bronx Zoo in opposition to his will in 1906.
Being Heumann: An Unrepentant Memoir of a Disability Rights Activist by Judith Heumann with Kristen Joiner
Judith Heumann was a lifelong activist. Her mother and father — each orphaned by the Holocaust — defied a health care provider’s suggestion to institutionalize her. Her mother and father advocated for her to entry faculty. At Camp Jened, later profiled in the documentary Crip Camp, Huemann honed her abilities as an organizer and met many different future activists. In 1970, she sued the state of New York and turned its first trainer who used a wheelchair. Her protests contributed to the passage of Section 504 in the Seventies and the ADA in 1990. She died in 2023 at age 75. Being Heumann and Disability Visibility, talked about earlier, have additionally each been tailored into variations for younger readers.
Sick: A Memoir by Porochista Khakpour
Born in Tehran, Iran, Porochista Khakpour is a novelist and essayist. In her memoir, she describes shifting throughout the U.S. and attempting dietary supplements and irritating remedies on the lengthy journey to her late-stage Lyme illness prognosis. She additionally skilled misdiagnosis, medical racism, and sexism. She describes feeling alienated from her personal physique: “To find a home in my body is to tell a story that doesn’t exist.”
The Cancer Journals by Audre Lorde
In 1980, Lorde, an activist, poet, and professor, revealed her account of surviving breast most cancers. The ebook combines poetry and private essays together with her journal entries. It explores how her prognosis affected her id as a Black, feminist, lesbian lady. Bodily autonomy is a crucial theme; for instance, she discusses her private resolution to not put on a breast prosthesis after a mastectomy. Many later examples of feminist and incapacity literature would additionally discover these themes.
Ten Steps to Nanette: A Memoir Situation by Hannah Gadsby
Like many different authors on this listing, Gadsby describes writing a memoir as a method of regaining management over their very own narrative. The queer, autistic, Australian comic is a flexible, award-winning performer identified for his or her Netflix comedy specials and visible artwork exhibits. They combine dry, self-deprecating humor and social critiques of systemic anti-LGBTQIA bias, sexism, and ableism. Gadsby describes the toll autistic masking took on them, particularly as a teen.
The Collected Schizophrenias by Esmé Weijun Wang
This essay assortment incorporates diagnostic standards, the writer’s emails to her docs, and private reflections. Her major psychiatric prognosis is schizoaffective dysfunction, bipolar kind, however as the title suggests, diagnoses can overlap or change. She acknowledges that some folks discover diagnoses pointless, however for her, they’re a reminder she’s not alone. Schizophrenia has been significantly stigmatized all through historical past and described as evil, witchcraft, or possession. In her essay “Yale Will Not Save You,” Wang describes being pushed out of Yale resulting from her psychological diseases in the early 2000s. Colleges typically deal with disabled college students as liabilities as an alternative of accommodating them below the ADA. This is very true of psychological diseases.
Being Seen: One Deafblind Woman’s Fight to End Ableism by Elsa Sjunneson
Sjunneson is an educator and speculative fiction writer and editor. Her debut memoir analyzes ableism in popular culture and how inaccurate and stereotypical portrayals have an effect on how Deafblind individuals are handled in on a regular basis life. At her former favourite bar, a bartender calls her information canine a “pet” and tries to pressure them each to go away, in violation of the ADA. She writes that this civil rights regulation from 1990 needs to be up to date. For instance, it ought to apply to on-line accessibility and be simpler to implement.
Fiction
Accidents of Nature by Harriet McBryde Johnson
Johnson, who died in 2008, was a legendary disabled legal professional and activist. After thinker Peter Singer mentioned mother and father ought to have the authorized proper to euthanize their disabled infants, she debated him in individual. Her 2006 YA novel’s protagonist, Jean, a teen with cerebral palsy in 1970, has all the time tried to slot in together with her non-disabled classmates. When she attends a camp for disabled children, she turns into a part of a disabled neighborhood for the first time. Sara, a longtime camper, introduces Jean to the fundamentals of the incapacity rights motion. Sara’s “telethon to stamp out normalcy” is an incisive satire of fundraisers that pity disabled children. Yet Jean additionally feels that Sara manipulated her fellow campers into appearing out her personal concepts.
Good Kings Bad Kings by Susan Nussbaum
This novel follows a gaggle of staff and younger residents at a nursing house in Illinois. The characters are various, each racially and of their disabilities, and every has a definite narrative voice and storyline. Joanne, an worker who was paralyzed as an grownup, pertains to the residents and introduces them to incapacity historical past and activism. Overcrowding and under-staffing allow abuse and demise. The residents understand they will protest their corrupt, abusive establishment. This novel received the 2012 PEN/Bellwether Prize for Socially Engaged Fiction. The writer was additionally a playwright who reworked her best-unproduced play into this novel.
True Biz by Sara Nović
Set in a boarding faculty for Deaf college students, this novel’s characters embody Charlie, a brand new scholar, and February, an alumna and headmistress attempting to avoid wasting the faculty. It additionally incorporates plenty of background on Deaf tradition and illustrations of American Sign Language. Some of the college students, like Austin, come from Deaf, signing households, whereas Charlie comes from a listening to household. Growing up with out entry to signal language was socially isolating for Charlie. Her story additionally exhibits that many Deaf folks don’t need cochlear implants. In Charlie’s case, her implants are harmful. She crews for a college manufacturing of Peter Pan and joins a various, rebellious group of buddies.
Unbroken: 13 Stories Starring Disabled Teens edited by Marieke Nijkamp
This 2018 YA anthology is various in the kinds and topics of the tales and the authors’ and characters’ identities. The tales vary from science fiction and fantasy worlds to practical, up to date tales about relationship. These are dynamic characters, whose relationships with different characters — and with their very own disabilities — are advanced and typically change.
Breathe and Count Back from Ten by Natalia Sylvester
The title of this YA novel has a attainable double which means: taking a deep breath earlier than anesthesia or earlier than swimming. Veró, the protagonist, is a Peruvian American teen lady with hip dysplasia, who needs to work as a performer at a mermaid-themed amusement park. She additionally has a crush on her neighbor. For disabled children, scheduling surgical procedures will be daunting and utterly disrupt faculty and different plans. This novel exhibits that surgical procedures, ableist harassment, old flame, and first jobs have a big impact on teenagers.
Discussion about this post