When you think of 24-year-olds publishing books you tend to arrive at the image of the literary wunderkind, a media-friendly superstar-in-the-making whom the literary establishment (or significant powers within it) have already adopted as their heir. Sometimes, as in the cases of Luke Kennard and Adam Thirlwell, the exaltation they generate is almost proportionate to their talents. The principle function of the books themselves, however, is nothing worthier than to showcase their writing talent.
When you think of a person with disabilities publishing a book, you might think of 'inspirational' autobiographies or volumes of risible poetry that in themselves demonstrate a heroic overcoming of an illness.
Maija Haavisto fulfils neither of these stereotypes. Since 2000 she has suffered from chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) , sometimes called ME, a debilitating disorder that leads to muscle pain, joint pain, cognitive difficulties and severe exhaustion, and is so poorly understood, both by the public and by medical professionals, that until recently it was sarcastically dubbed 'yuppie flu' and considered to be a type of hypochondria.
Despite being kicked out of her home at 16 and spending the intervening years in and out of hospital, working with doctors who were unsure as to how to properly treat her condition and facing a demoralising battle against a government that refused to pay out disability allowance for a disorder they don't believe exists, Maija continued to pursue her interests in writing, art and medicine, supporting herself by working as a freelance technology journalist. She has now written and published a book, Reviving the Broken Marionette: Treatments for CFS/ME and Fibromyalgia.
As you can tell from the title, this is no Surviving x: My Story-type affair, but a painstakingly researched medical volume addressing a subject which very few other books have dealt with and featuring analysis of over 250 treatments, including experimental therapies.
It's an astonishing feat for a young writer who has not only had to learn to cope with an illness herself but hasn't been provided with any research grants or similar monetary luxuries that British institutions like to lavish on able-bodied graduates.
But that's not the only reason Fuselit: Cut Out and Keep wanted to run a feature on her. Maija is also a writer of short stories and poetry, matters which are at the heart of our raison d'etre, and a multi-competition-winning ASCII artist (pictures created using, as you might expect, ASCII text only).
Here are links to some of her pieces:
Zeabra
Stranger
Stripetease
Digital Gardening
And here is Vulpix, from her ASCII Pokedex, which I thought was appropriate since we're launching Fox this weekend.
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Reviving the Broken Marionette: Treatments for CFS/ME and Fibromyalgia
Maija's website
Maija's deviantart
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