‘Writing helped me understand my own feelings’ – Lauren Segal chats about her book Cancer: A Love Story
More about the book!

Four-time cancer survivor Lauren Segal chatted to eNCA anchor Ayanda-Allie Paine recently about her new book, Cancer: A Love Story.

Cancer: A Love Story is Segal’s intimately searing memoir, tracking her journey to come to terms with the untold challenges of facing the dreaded disease.

Lauren Segal has co-authored five books: One Law One Nation; Great Lives, Pivotal Moments; Mapping Memories; Number Four; The Making of Constitution Hill and Soweto: A History.

‘I think it is an interesting for a writer to turn from the world around her into her own world,’ she says. ‘Because writing is so part of my life, it was an obvious way for me to try and understand what I was going through.’

Segal says the act of writing helped understand and work through what was happening to her.

‘So many people are touched by cancer, it is a disease that puts one in a state of fear, or instantaneously, even the world “cancer” evokes fear, and when you receive a diagnosis your whole world feels like it’s crumbling around you. So I drew on writing as a way of trying to order my thoughts and trying to understand what was happening to me.

‘Writing amplifies an experience; it helps you understand exactly what it is you’re feeling.’