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Cancer: Through the Eyes of Ten Women
The contributors to this startingly original collection have two things in they all have cancer, and none of them tells a 'conventional cancer story' of heroic defiance in the face of adversity.
No woman who has had cancer continues her life uncharged. In their determination to uncover the complexities and subtleties of cancer truths, the contributors adopt entirely other ways of understanding their experience. Debbie Dickinson imagines herself as music incarnate, as instruments and voices, different selves, combine and conflict. Jackie Stacey confronts the cancer narrative head on - likening it to Hollywood structures with heroes, villains and closures - and looks for a different way to convey her own story. Patricia Duncker examines the anger so often excised from the heroic stories, and unflinchingly looks at the reaction of others to her and her disease. Felly Nkweto Simmonds finds cancer tempering experience, bringing strength but also aloneness. Poet Marilyn Hacker uses a sonnet sequence to convey the emotions her 'Cancer Winter' aroused; Carole Colbour chronicles the painful dissolution and renewal of a marriage.
No woman who has had cancer continues her life uncharged. In their determination to uncover the complexities and subtleties of cancer truths, the contributors adopt entirely other ways of understanding their experience. Debbie Dickinson imagines herself as music incarnate, as instruments and voices, different selves, combine and conflict. Jackie Stacey confronts the cancer narrative head on - likening it to Hollywood structures with heroes, villains and closures - and looks for a different way to convey her own story. Patricia Duncker examines the anger so often excised from the heroic stories, and unflinchingly looks at the reaction of others to her and her disease. Felly Nkweto Simmonds finds cancer tempering experience, bringing strength but also aloneness. Poet Marilyn Hacker uses a sonnet sequence to convey the emotions her 'Cancer Winter' aroused; Carole Colbour chronicles the painful dissolution and renewal of a marriage.
236 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1996
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About the author
Patricia Duncker
24 books88 followersPatricia Duncker attended school in England and, after a period spent working in Germany, she read English at Newnham College, Cambridge.
She studied for a D.Phil. in English and German Romanticism at St Hugh's College, Oxford.
From 1993-2002, she taught Literature at the University of Aberystwyth, and from 2002-2006, has been Professor of Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia, teaching the MA in Prose Fiction.
In January 2007, she moved to the University of Manchester where she is Professor of Modern Literature.
She studied for a D.Phil. in English and German Romanticism at St Hugh's College, Oxford.
From 1993-2002, she taught Literature at the University of Aberystwyth, and from 2002-2006, has been Professor of Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia, teaching the MA in Prose Fiction.
In January 2007, she moved to the University of Manchester where she is Professor of Modern Literature.
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