Ewan Bowlby's research and writing uncovers a crucial way of improving the lives of anyone facing cancer's consequences
- Demonstrates that through engaging with all kinds of culture, a crucial way of improving the lives of anyone facing the consequences of cancer can be found
- An honest, moving and inspiring memoir about living with cancer and approaching death
When Ewan Bowlby was diagnosed with a brain tumour at the age of 17, he tackled the consequences head on. In the last decade of his life, as cancer developed, he recorded his experience with great honesty. But much more than that, he discovered a crucial way of improving the lives of anyone facing cancer's consequences. Ewan believed 'evidence-based medicine' had left 'a lost sense of humanity'. Through all kinds of culture - whether author John Green's The Fault in Our Stars, Alexander Solzhenitsn's Cancer Ward or TV's Breaking Bad - everyone could find new ways of responding to such devastating illness. He revealed how sentimentality, even humour filled the huge hole left by cold clinical language. A brilliant student, he tested his ideas everywhere from top universities to groups of patients from every background. This book is Ewan's story of living with cancer and approaching death, and his unique insight into how everyone caught up in that world can learn to think differently about what they are facing.
Autorentext
Ewan Bowlby was born and grew up in Oxford with his parents Jane and Chris and siblings Laura and Alfie. As a child, he loved football, singing, chess and family silliness. He was diagnosed with a benign brain tumour at the age of seventeen. Despite this, he finished an undergraduate degree in Theology at the University of Cambridge before his tumour turned cancerous. After a year of treatment, he pursued postgraduate studies at the University of St Andrews where he drew on his personal experience to research and implement ways that fictional narratives in literature, film and TV can provide emotional and spiritual care for cancer patients.
Ewan published academic articles, was editor-in-chief of the online art and theology journal Transpositions, a Centre Ambassador for the cancer care charity Maggie's and a regular visitor to Maggie's Dundee. He sang in a church choir, played sport, supported Newcastle United and enjoyed long walks with his wife Karlee. He completed a charity half-marathon just three months before he died. Ewan was awarded his doctorate in Theology and the Arts weeks before his death in 2022 at the age of twenty-seven.