Since it was first published in 1995, The Wounded Storyteller has occupied a unique place in the body of work on illness. Both a collective portrait of the so-called 'remission society' of people with some kind of illness or disability, and a compelling analysis of their stories within the broader framework of narrative theory, Arthur W. Frank's book has reached a wide and diverse readership, including patients, doctors and literary theory scholars. Drawing on the work of authors such as Oliver Sacks, Anatole Broyard, Norman Cousins and Audre Lorde, as well as people he met during his years with various disease groups, Frank cites a moving collection of illness stories, ranging from the well-known - Gilda Radner's battle with ovarian cancer - to the personal testimonies of people with cancer, chronic fatigue syndrome and disability. Their stories are more than descriptions of personal suffering: they abound with moral choices and point to social ethics. In this new edition, Frank adds a foreword describing the personal and cultural times when the first edition was written. . Reflecting both on his own life during the creation of the first edition and on the conclusions of the book itself, Frank reminds us of the power of storytelling.
Reviews
"Arthur W. Frank has changed the way we think about storytelling and healthcare. His work champions a point of view long neglected and too often considered medically irrelevant. His insightful essays on the human need to make sense of illness have become 'must-reads' for many of us."- Larry R. Churchill - author of Healers: Uncommon Clinicians at Work
'A classic book. Illness affects us all - patients, doctors, family, friends - and Arthur W. Frank shows how illness transcends bodies to shape stories (personal and cultural). In turn, stories often transform the experience of illness. The Wounded Storyteller is thus an indispensable guide to the strangely familiar but alien territory we inhabit as we enter what Susan Sontag called 'the realm of the sick'."-David B. Morris - author of The Culture of Pain