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Miscellaneous Evelyne Accad. The Wounded Breast: Intimate Journeys Through Cancer North Melbourne, Australia. Spinifex. 2001 538 pages, ill. $14.95. ISBN 1-876756-12-8
ALTHOUGH EVELYNE ACCAD has contributed to francophone literature, Middle Eastern studies, and women's studies since the late 1970s through such critical works as Veil of Shame (1978) and Sexuality and War (1990) and such novels as L'excisee (1982), Coquelicot du massacre (1988), and Blessures des mots (1993), her latest work, The Wounded Breast: Intimate Journeys Through Cancer, is by her own admission the most universal in nature. Winner of the 2001 Phenix Prize for Literature, the book is more than a journal on her personal battle with breast cancer, although this aspect is essential to the dynamic of the work. The Wounded Breast is an autobiography, a social commentary, and a multicultural analysis of the taboos surrounding cancer, women's bodies, and sexual identity, as well as a psychological profile of those living with disease, whether as a victim or as a support-giver. Near the end of Accad's own treatment for cancer, the chapter "Tragic Irony" reveals...