The Story of My Life

"I only vaguely knew about her myself to begin with. I think she’s more famous in America, and deserves to be. Helen Keller, who died in 1968, was deaf, dumb and blind. She was struck deaf and blind by meningitis at the age of 18 months, which makes you “dumb” as you don’t know what other people are saying. Her autobiography is very beautifully written, and gives you a sense of what it’s like to be trapped without sight or hearing – and the excitement in the world that she still managed to have. You can see clips of her on YouTube, being taught to dance by [the choreographer] Martha Graham towards the end of her life. She escaped from what other people would have seen as an inescapable prison, and managed to speak and to write – and to write beautifully. Support Five Books Five Books interviews are expensive to produce. If you're enjoying this interview, please support us by donating a small amount . So there’s something very heroic about her, and the way that people treated her. Mark Twain, when he met her, realised there was something special about her early on, and gathered a group of friends to pay for her education and put her through university. She had a hunger for new experiences. She was also a very influential figure for getting people with disabilities accepted as human beings."