My story is about survival, fear and, finally, hope. ‘I wanted to show the side of autism that you don’t find in books and on Facebook. They witness their own behaviour with a wry humour as they sympathises with those who care for them, yet all the while challenging the neurotypical narratives of autism as something to be ‘fixed’. They address the reader in a voice that is direct, sharply clever and ironic. For Charlotte, autism is a fundamental aspect of their identity and art. From food and fandom, to body modification and comic conventions, Charlotte’s experiences through the torments of schooldays and young adulthood leave us with a riot of conflicting emotions: horror, empathy, despair, laugh-out-loud amusement and, most of all, respect. As we follow Charlotte’s journey through school and college, we become as awestruck by their extraordinary passion for life as by the enormous privations that they must undergo to live it. Poe’s voice is confident, moving and often funny, as they reveal to us a very personal account of autism, mental illness, gender and sexual identity. An urgent, funny, shocking, and impassioned memoir by the winner of the Spectrum Art Prize 2018, How To Be Autistic by Charlotte Amelia Poe presents the rarely shown point of view of someone living with autism.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |