How does the journey of self-discovery unfold in the aftermath of a life-altering stroke?

From Scientist to Stroke Survivor is a poignant work of narrative nonfiction, a tapestry woven of prose, poetry, and lyrical essays. Diving deep into the facets of identity and the quest for self-reclamation, Elly Katz navigates the aftermath of a stroke, using the written word as a tool for understanding and articulation.

In her journey of self-discovery, Katz delves into migratory episodes of person-building. Each of these acts serves as a lens through which she explores identity, grapples with disability, and strives to reclaim the center of her life story—despite the eclipse caused by a life-altering stroke. These contemplative encounters exist at the margins shaping her realization of self. This book is an intimate exploration of disability which zigzags across genres, blurring boundaries and troubling the linearity of time. It is a pilgrimage of the soul—a journey that weaves through calamity and emergence, leaving no emotion untouched.

Drawing the readers into the profound depths of human resilience, this book is ideal reading for students of disability studies, writing courses and trauma courses.

Elly Katz verged towards a doctorate in Genetics at Harvard University, but a stroke at age 27 prevented her from realizing this dream. She suffered with Ehlers Danlos Syndrome (EDS), a connective tissue disease, for much of her life.

Editorial Reviews

In From Scientist to Stroke Survivor: Life Redacted, Elly Katz creates a compelling, transcendent narrative of her experience as the survivor of a profound stroke. I strongly recommend this work for anyone engaged in the treatment or recovery process, whether as a medical professional, a caregiver, or a patient. Elly provides unique insight into the grief and pain of her experience while at the same time holding up a beacon of hope to anyone struggling to regain anything approaching "normalcy" after major injury or illness. This work combines poetry, testimony, and self- analysis to bring the reader into the world of someone experiencing life- altering change.

— Elena Kramer, Harvard University's Bussey Professor of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology

Elly Katz has written a book about disability, about the loss and recovery of the physical and spiritual self, that it unlike anything I've read before. It's a profound and lyrical meditation on what it means to be alive, a book that will shatter your heart on one page and piece it back together on the next.

— Sam Apple, John's Hopkins Writing Program Coordinator and Senior Lecturer in Writing

Elly Katz's From Scientist to Stroke Survivor: Life Redacted is a powerful look at trauma, disability, and the enduring power of the individual. This heart-wrenching and inspirational collection not only gives insight into the emotional toll of chronic disease and trauma, but what it is to be human- to more than persist, but to reconstruct after devastating loss. I encourage anyone in the medical science community to read Elly's work as a way to better understand the human side of the ailments we study and aim to treat.

— Jenna Galloway, Associate Professor, Massachussets General Hospital and Harvard Medical School

From Scientist to Stroke Survivor: Life Redacted begins when Elly wakes up after a medical procedure and realizes something has profoundly changed. What follows is Elly's transformation; her transcendence into a new state of being. Anyone who has experienced pain, loss- suffering that seems pointless- will benefit from this book. Pain, in this life, can be arbitrary and instantaneous. It can come from anywhere at any time. As Elly describes it, "Just as quickly as we enter the womb of the world, we can be pushed out, evaporated out of our current mentality and woken to hollow shells of ourselves." Yet, out of loss sometimes comes a transcendence. Sometimes, loss is amplification- a direct line of sight without dilution. Elly writes for a simple reason: she has to. She writes because her soul is a percolating hotbox of raw feelings that needs to vent before it suffocates her. She writes to add edges to an amorphous future. This book is her gift to the world.

— Travis Christofferson, Author of Tripping Over the Truth