“Tell Me the Story of Your Body”: Emily Rapp Black and Jan Grue on Creativity and Disability

“This is not a story about survival. It is not about how I became a human, but rather how I came to understand that I already was human.” So writes Norwegian author Jan Grue, who was diagnosed with spinal muscular atrophy at age three. In I Live a Life Like Yours (“compelling, unconventional and powerfully told,” says The New York Times Book Review), he gives us an unforgettable vision of living, loving, and making art in a vulnerable body. New York Times bestselling memoirist Emily Rapp Black—who will be joining the session virtually—also grew up different from those around her: an amputee from childhood, she learned early how to hide her disability from the world. In Frida Kahlo and My Left Leg, critically lauded as a “wild masterpiece,” she draws meaning from the art and life of the iconic painter, whose leg was eventually amputated after a brutal bus crash. This is a profound conversation about navigating identity, art-making, and self-expression in a complex body, and inventing a language with which to do justice to it.

The bookstore partner for this session is Pegasus Books! Buy the books online on their website, on Bookshop.org, or purchase them in person at the Festival. More information here.

Book signing information: 12 PM, Pegasus Books, right outside the ballroom

With the support of the Norway House Foundation and NORLA - Norwegian Literature Abroad