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Every Cripple a Superhero

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Every Cripple a Superhero Synopsis

'Fascinating ... compelling ... very funny' Sunday Times
'A defiant call to arms ... affecting ... lingers long in the memory after its final page' Morning Star
'A skilful act of literary witness, sharp, moving and funny' Joanne Limburg
'Christoph Keller ... ranks among the great Swiss writers' Neue Zürcher Zeitung

Most stories of disability follow a familiar pattern: Life Before Accident. Life After Accident. For Christoph Keller, it was different: his childhood diagnosis with a form of Spinal Muscular Atrophy only revealed what had been with him since birth. SMA III, the 'kindest one', allows those who have it to live a long life, and it progresses slowly. There is no cure. By the age of 25, he had to use a wheelchair some of the time. 'There were two of me: Walking Me. Rolling Me.' By 32, he could still walk into a restaurant with a cane or on somebody's arm. At 45, 'Rolling Me' took over altogether.

Intimate, absurdist and winningly frank, Every Cripple a Superhero is at once a memoir of life with a progressive disorder, and a profound exploration of the challenges of loving, being loved, and living a public life - navigating restaurants, aeroplanes, museums and artists' retreats - in a world not designed for you. Threaded throughout are Keller's own photographs of the unexpected beauty found in puddle-filled 'curb cuts', the pavement ramps that, left to disintegrate, form part of the urban obstacle course. Those puddles become portals into a different, truer city; and, as they do, so this book - told with humour and immense grace - begins to uncover a truer world: one where the 'normal' is not normal, where disability is far more widespread than we might think, and where there always exist, just alongside our own, the lives of everyday superheroes.

About This Edition

ISBN: 9781802060997
Publication date: 27th July 2023
Author: Christoph Keller
Publisher: Penguin Books an imprint of Penguin Books Ltd
Format: Paperback
Pagination: 192 pages
Genres: Memoirs
Accessibility in buildings and building design
Social discrimination and social justice
Disability: social aspects
Urban and municipal planning and policy
Architecture