This book examines narratives of dementia in contemporary literary texts, studying what is now a pressing issue with deep political, economic, and social implications for many ageing societies. As part of the increasing visibility of dementia in social and cultural life, these narratives pose ethical, aesthetic, and political questions about subjectivity, agency, and care that help us to interrogate the cultural discourse of dementia.

Sarah Falcus is a Reader in Contemporary Literature at the University of Huddersfield, UK. She has research interests in contemporary women's writing, feminism and literary gerontology. She is the co-director of the Dementia and Cultural Narrative (DCN) network.

Katsura Sako is Associate Professor of English, Keio University, Japan. Her main field of research is in post-war/contemporary British literature and she has interests in gender, ageing and illness. She is a steering committee of the DCN network.

List of Figures

Acknowledgements

Introduction

The Discourse of Dementia

Narrativising Dementia

Past, Present and Future in Narratives of Dementia

Care and Vulnerability in Narratives of Dementia

Structure of the book

Conclusion

Chapter One: A Story of One's Own: Auto/Biographies of Dementia

Part One: Autosomatographies: Writing from the Inside

Part Two: Somatographies: Familial Stories

The Burden of Care: Jan's Story and Keeper

Family History and Genealogy: The Last of His Mind and Remind Me Who I Am, Again

Graphic Life Writing

Chapter Two: Time, Narrative and Life with Dementia

Part One: Time and Memory in Barney's Version and The Wilderness

Part Two: Care and family stories in The Memory Book and The One with the News

Chapter Three: Dementia and Narratives of Detection

Part One: Detection, Dementia and Loss

Part Two: Dementia and Care in Women's Detective Narratives

Chapter Four: Familial Tales: Inheritance and Generational Time

Part One: Family History and Generational Time: Grace and Mary, Remember Remember, The Bonesetter's Daughter, The Story of Forgetting and Essex County

Part Two: Bequeathing the Future: The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey and We Are Not Ourselves

Chapter Five: Dementia in Children's Picturebooks

Children's Literature

Continuity and Change in Picturebooks about Dementia

Conclusion

Bibliography