Head Above Water: Reflections on Illness

Head Above Water is a professor's moving account of being diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis at just eighteen in a conservative Kuwaiti society, drawing from her diary entries and fading memories as the disease advances. Shahd Alshammaris sensuous prose explores the manipulation of memory, the question of time, and gender politics. We are invited to reconsider the intricacies of love, the body, motherhood, the pervasive power of language, the power of womens education, and the synergy between the Professor and the student.Jokha Alharthi Omani author of Celestial bodies, winner of the International Man Booker Prize (2019) Reading Alshammaris work, I thought continually of Yeatss famous line, a terrible beauty is born. In this book, illness is that terrible beauty, always affecting but never determining the authors life.Arthur W. Frank, Ph.D. Author of At the Will of the Body and The Wounded Storyteller An important piece of life writing - Shahd Alshammaris memoir breaks new ground in representing the lives of disabled Arab women. Exploring connections between the body, language, and culture, Alshammaris new memoir is a sensitive and moving invitation to reconsider the stories that we are made of. Dr. Roxanne Douglas, University of Warwick A necessary and beautiful account of life with a sometimes-invisible and unpredictable disability, complicated by both patriarchy and racism, as well as a professors love letter to the act of teaching and being taught.Marcia Lynx Qualey (@Arablit) See more