Corien van Zweden (b. 1962) studied Theology and has been working as a freelance journalist since 1994. She writes on themes such as health care and psychiatry, education and development aid. In 2008, she published The Art of Grieving, which she followed up in 2015 with A Bite Out of the Sun: Five Faces of Cancer.
(De Bezige Bij, 2019, 285 pages)
When the doctors tell Corien van Zweden, after a recurrence of cancer, that her left breast will need to be removed, she is startled by their presumption that an immediate ‘reconstruction’ is what she wants, or indeed needs. With more questions than answers, she resolves to understand her breasts on a biological level, but also to recognize what they mean to her, to other women and to society as a whole.
