Books like Tiger's Eye by Inga Clendinnen

When a chronic active hepatitis diagnosis leaves Inga Clendinnen—an Australian historian of Mayan and Aztec history—confined to a hospital bed and out of academia, she discovers that writing can be a refuge from bodily debilitation. In her memoir, she retraces her childhood in Australia, remembering neighbors, family, and reclusive sisters, while also confronting the unsettling hallucinations that accompany her illness and the profound mental, physical and moral impacts of her disease. Drawing on her scholarly background, Clendinnen maps the border between history and fiction, memory and truth, as she questions the reliability of her own recollections and seeks to reconcile her past selves with the woman she has become. "Tiger’s Eye" blends autobiographical reflection, historical analysis and creative storytelling into a powerful meditation on how illness can reshape identity and how writing can help us reconstruct it.

First publish date: 2001