Breaking the Silence: Inspirational Stories of Black Cancer Survivors

Cancer survivors, their family members, and their friends will find comfort in these inspirational stories told by black cancer patients. Covering every facet of the disease as it affects a person's life, including diagnosis, treatment, family involvement, spiritual strength, and healing, these stories, poems, journal entries, and letters address such complex issues as coping with the shock of the initial diagnosis, deciding among various forms of treatments, and dealing with conflicting emotions of anger, sadness, and hope. Helping to heal the mind, body, and spirit, these courageous and thoughtful reflections seek to lighten the burden that all cancer survivors and those who care for them must bear. Celebrated poet and cancer survivor Nikki Giovanni contributes a moving introduction to these inspirational pieces.

Cancer survivors, their family members, and their friends will find comfort in these inspirational stories told by black cancer patients. Covering every facet of the disease as it affects a person's life, including diagnosis, treatment, family involvement, spiritual strength, and healing, these stories, poems, journal entries, and letters address such complex issues as coping with the shock of the initial diagnosis, deciding among various forms of treatments, and dealing with conflicting emotions of anger, sadness, and hope. Helping to heal the mind, body, and spirit, these courageous and thoughtful reflections seek to lighten the burden that all cancer survivors and those who care for them must bear. Celebrated poet and cancer survivor Nikki Giovanni contributes a moving introduction to these inspirational pieces.

Stanford is Assistant Professor of Political Science and African American Studies at the University of Georgia.

Poet, activist, mother, and professor, Nikki Giovanni is a three-time NAACP Image Award winner and the first recipient of the Rosa Parks Woman of Courage Award, and holds the Langston Hughes Medal for Outstanding Poetry. The author of twenty-seven books and a Grammy nominee for "The Nikki Giovanni Poetry Collection", she is the University Distinguished Professor/English at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Virginia, and an Oprah Living Legend.