Somebody Somewhere: Breaking Free from the World of Autism - Hardcover

Williams, Donna

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0812922875 ISBN 13: 9780812922875

Publisher: Times Books, 1994

Synopsis

The sequel to Nobody Nowhere continues the author's account of her battle with autism, describing a life dominated by disembodied pattern, sound, color, and movement, her sessions with her therapist, and her teaching career. 75,000 first printing. $75,000 ad/promo.

About this title

Review:

"This book deserves every superlative a reviewer can muster."
-The Globe and Mail

"To be able to do what [Donna Williams] has done, by age 27, and to write about it so poignantly and so articulately is to function on a higher level than most 'normal' folk achieve in a lifetime."
-Boston Globe

"By illuminating her own unique perceptions, she allows us to understand our own perceptions as never before...And oh, can she write."
-The New York Times Review of Books

"The artistically gifted Williams continues to build a bridge between 'my' world and 'the'world."
-Publishers Weekly

"Somebody Somewhere...provides a shining light into the dark mystery of autism."
-Detroit Free Press

From the Author:

What Donna says about writing Autobiography
Why write about oneself?
Everyone has a different reason.

I wrote the first of my four autobiographical works, Nobody Nowhere, on the verge of suicide after a wild half-crazy life with abuse, homelessness and ultimately hope for belonging only to find I was terrified of real closeness. I had a last inkling of hope that I couldn't truly say I'd tried my hardest to cope if I'd never fully disclosed the nature of my own private world. So I wrote out everything that mattered in my feelings and decided to give it to one child psychiatrist in the hope they could tell me what kind of mad I was and whether there was hope for answers and belonging. My intention was to then shred it, burn it and leave this world. Instead it was passed on to his colleague, then from her to her publisher, from him to an agent and from there out into the world it became a number one international bestseller. But why write three more?

My second autobiography, Somebody Somewhere is so completely different to the first and exposed a world of such different, forgotten citizens of the world, that the story had to be told, to give a voice to the voiceless, to be a starting point for solidarity and building bridges. It too became a number one international bestseller.

The third work, Like Color to The Blind exposed three very controversial areas that I felt strongly about; the visual fragmentation of visual perceptual disorders, the importance of augmented and alternative communication systems for voiceless people and the search for selfhood buried underneath stored learning, something so many people struggle with in silence until its often too late.

The fourth book, Everyday Heaven was about the simultaneous discovery of sexuality, journeys in orientation and at the same time coping with loss in a two year span in which I lost three of the closest people in my life.

So I wrote each for very different reasons, to hope and to survive, to shout and to stay sane.

About this edition

• Publisher: Times Books
• Publication date: 1994
• ISBN 10: 0812922875
• ISBN 13: 9780812922875
• Binding: Hardcover