-
Bless the Blood
- A Cancer Memoir
- Narrated by: Walela Nehanda
- Length: 6 hrs and 18 mins
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
![Prime logo](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/G/01/Audible/Homestead/Prime_Logo_RGB.png)
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Buy for $16.20
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Publisher's summary
A searing debut YA poetry and essay collection about a Black cancer patient who faces medical racism after being diagnosed with leukemia in their early twenties, for fans of Audre Lorde's The Cancer Journals and Laurie Halse Anderson's Shout.
When Walela is diagnosed at twenty-three with advanced stage blood cancer, they're suddenly thrust into the unsympathetic world of tubes and pills, doctors who don’t use their correct pronouns, and hordes of "well-meaning" but patronizing people offering unsolicited advice as they navigate rocky personal relationships and share their story online.
But this experience also deepens their relationship to their ancestors, providing added support from another realm. Walela's diagnosis becomes a catalyst for their self-realization. As they fill out forms in the insurance office in downtown Los Angeles or travel to therapy in wealthier neighborhoods, they begin to understand that cancer is where all forms of their oppression intersect: Disabled. Fat. Black. Queer. Nonbinary.
In Bless the Blood: A Cancer Memoir, the author details a galvanizing account of their survival despite the U.S. medical system, and of the struggle to face death unafraid.
Critic reviews
"Nehanda infuses queer Black disabled resilience and wretchedness into a poetic sinew that stretches, tears, and heals again and again...Shatters mirrors and windows to reveal the jagged shards of self-determination: 'gently volatile' and absolutely crucial."
—Kirkus Reviews, starred review
“Nehanda is a gifted poet with a fiercely honest, achingly vulnerable voice. They reveal both the ugly and the beautiful, their anger (‘Concept: Coraline but Make It Black’) as compelling as their stunning love poems (‘Heaven Is at Grandma’s House’ is unforgettable) and odes (‘Nail Salon as Self-Care’)…Teens will recognize the inspirations for many of the poems, from bell hooks to Megan Thee Stallion, as they follow Nehanda’s journey to its cathartic, revelatory end.” —Booklist, starred review
"Bless the Blood is unlike any book I’ve read before. In a voice that’s utterly electric and completely new, Walela Nehanda explodes the tidy narratives of the typical illness arc. Equal parts prose and poetry, memoir and manifesto, this book rejects every trope of what it means to be sick and disabled. When in the throes of illness, it’s so easy to feel helpless, but Bless the Blood pulses with a power that’s contagious. Reading this book gives me the energy to take it on." —Suleika Jaouad, New York Times bestselling author of Between Two Kingdoms
People who viewed this also viewed...
-
Otherworldly
- By: F.T. Lukens
- Narrated by: Em Grosland, Kevin R. Free, Natalie Naudus
- Length: 11 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Seventeen-year-old Ellery is a non-believer in a region where people swear the supernatural is real. Sure, they’ve been stuck in a five-year winter, but there’s got to be a scientific explanation. If goddesses were real, they wouldn’t abandon their charges like this, leaving farmers like Ellery’s family to scrape by.
-
-
Absolutely Amazing
- By Kindle Customer on 06-03-24
By: F.T. Lukens
-
How the Boogeyman Became a Poet
- By: Tony Keith Jr.
- Narrated by: Tony Keith Jr.
- Length: 5 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Tony dreams about life after high school, where his poetic voice can find freedom on the stage and page. But the Boogeyman has been following Tony since he was six years old. First, the Boogeyman was after his Blackness, but Tony has learned It knows more than that: Tony wants to be the first in his family to attend college, but there’s no path to follow. He also has feelings for boys, desires that don’t align with the script he thinks is set for him and his girlfriend, Blu. Despite a supportive network of family and friends, Tony doesn’t breathe a word to anyone about his feelings.
-
-
Outstanding Book Written Poem-Style
- By Amazon Customer on 03-28-24
By: Tony Keith Jr.
-
The Cancer Journals
- By: Audre Lorde, Tracy K. Smith
- Narrated by: Elizabeth Lorde-Rollins
- Length: 3 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
First published over 40 years ago, The Cancer Journals is a startling, powerful account of Audre Lorde's experience with breast cancer and mastectomy. Long before narratives explored the silences around illness and women's pain, Lorde questioned the rules of conformity for women's body images and supported the need to confront physical loss not hidden by prosthesis.
-
-
A heavyweight on a heavy.
- By @oil_house_ (IG) on 03-26-23
By: Audre Lorde, and others
-
The Ballad of Jacquotte Delahaye
- A Novel
- By: Briony Cameron
- Narrated by: Angel Pean
- Length: 12 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the tumultuous town of Yáquimo, Santo Domingo, Jacquotte Delahaye is an unknown but up-and-coming shipwright. Her dreams are bold but her ambitions are bound by the confines of her life with her self-seeking French father. When her way of life and the delicate balance of power in the town are threatened, she is forced to flee her home and become a woman on the run along with a motley crew of refugees, including a mysterious young woman named Teresa.
-
-
Exactly what I was looking for
- By Anne on 06-29-24
By: Briony Cameron
-
A Tempest of Tea
- By: Hafsah Faizal
- Narrated by: Maya Saroya
- Length: 11 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the New York Times–bestselling author of We Hunt the Flame comes the first audiobook in a hotly anticipated fantasy duology teeming with romance and revenge, led by an orphan girl willing to do whatever it takes to save her self-made kingdom.
-
-
Did Not Disappoint
- By Don Reynolds on 02-24-24
By: Hafsah Faizal
-
Where Sleeping Girls Lie
- By: Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé
- Narrated by: Natalie Simpson
- Length: 16 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Where Sleeping Girls Lie—a YA contemporary mystery by Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé, the New York Times-bestselling author of Ace of Spades—a girl new to boarding school discovers dark secrets and coverups after her roommate disappears.
-
-
Good read
- By Lisa Thomas on 06-28-24
-
Otherworldly
- By: F.T. Lukens
- Narrated by: Em Grosland, Kevin R. Free, Natalie Naudus
- Length: 11 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Seventeen-year-old Ellery is a non-believer in a region where people swear the supernatural is real. Sure, they’ve been stuck in a five-year winter, but there’s got to be a scientific explanation. If goddesses were real, they wouldn’t abandon their charges like this, leaving farmers like Ellery’s family to scrape by.
-
-
Absolutely Amazing
- By Kindle Customer on 06-03-24
By: F.T. Lukens
-
How the Boogeyman Became a Poet
- By: Tony Keith Jr.
- Narrated by: Tony Keith Jr.
- Length: 5 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Tony dreams about life after high school, where his poetic voice can find freedom on the stage and page. But the Boogeyman has been following Tony since he was six years old. First, the Boogeyman was after his Blackness, but Tony has learned It knows more than that: Tony wants to be the first in his family to attend college, but there’s no path to follow. He also has feelings for boys, desires that don’t align with the script he thinks is set for him and his girlfriend, Blu. Despite a supportive network of family and friends, Tony doesn’t breathe a word to anyone about his feelings.
-
-
Outstanding Book Written Poem-Style
- By Amazon Customer on 03-28-24
By: Tony Keith Jr.
-
The Cancer Journals
- By: Audre Lorde, Tracy K. Smith
- Narrated by: Elizabeth Lorde-Rollins
- Length: 3 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
First published over 40 years ago, The Cancer Journals is a startling, powerful account of Audre Lorde's experience with breast cancer and mastectomy. Long before narratives explored the silences around illness and women's pain, Lorde questioned the rules of conformity for women's body images and supported the need to confront physical loss not hidden by prosthesis.
-
-
A heavyweight on a heavy.
- By @oil_house_ (IG) on 03-26-23
By: Audre Lorde, and others
-
The Ballad of Jacquotte Delahaye
- A Novel
- By: Briony Cameron
- Narrated by: Angel Pean
- Length: 12 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the tumultuous town of Yáquimo, Santo Domingo, Jacquotte Delahaye is an unknown but up-and-coming shipwright. Her dreams are bold but her ambitions are bound by the confines of her life with her self-seeking French father. When her way of life and the delicate balance of power in the town are threatened, she is forced to flee her home and become a woman on the run along with a motley crew of refugees, including a mysterious young woman named Teresa.
-
-
Exactly what I was looking for
- By Anne on 06-29-24
By: Briony Cameron
-
A Tempest of Tea
- By: Hafsah Faizal
- Narrated by: Maya Saroya
- Length: 11 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the New York Times–bestselling author of We Hunt the Flame comes the first audiobook in a hotly anticipated fantasy duology teeming with romance and revenge, led by an orphan girl willing to do whatever it takes to save her self-made kingdom.
-
-
Did Not Disappoint
- By Don Reynolds on 02-24-24
By: Hafsah Faizal
-
Where Sleeping Girls Lie
- By: Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé
- Narrated by: Natalie Simpson
- Length: 16 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Where Sleeping Girls Lie—a YA contemporary mystery by Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé, the New York Times-bestselling author of Ace of Spades—a girl new to boarding school discovers dark secrets and coverups after her roommate disappears.
-
-
Good read
- By Lisa Thomas on 06-28-24