Strange and Tender Fracture: Flash Illness Writing, Chronic Pain, and Alternatives to "Resilience"

Abstract:

How might flash writing be useful in communicating chronic pain? This question drove the UKRI AHRC-funded project Translating Chronic Pain at Lancaster University (2017–2019), which focused on the potential of fragmentary, episode-driven forms. This article examines how the ultra-short form and navigation architectures of the Translating Pain online anthology facilitate a polyphony of responses to pain that neither deny the validity of distress nor make recovery a solitary, individual act. The anthology's polyphony of voices encompasses a broad register of affects and, at times, offers a commitment to the inconclusive—to ambivalent and unfinished experiences of pain, without moving too quickly to culturally sanctioned closures of optimism or individual overcoming.