[ book tip by Tamar Tembeck ] When Pain Strikes presents thirty diverse, interdisciplinary responses to pain, whether physical, spiritual, psychological or moral. The book amalgamates eclectic perspectives ranging from academic and artistic circles, community activists, creative writers, people living with illness, etc., each of which attests to the fact that pain is inherently incommunicable and therefore needs to be translated into various, partial forms.

The book is organised in five chapters whose titles are borrowed from responses to the multiple-choice question, 'When pain strikes, do you A. Measure it, B. Scream and yell, C. Cut it open,' etc. It reads as a cultural and ethnographic, fragmented, anti-narrative of pain.

[ book info ] Busby, Cathy et al: When Pain Strikes.