“My Body Knows Unheard-Of Songs”: Reading Atmakatha as a Postcolonial Disability Memoir of Embodiment

Disability life-writing is a valuable contribution to the literary landscape as it addresses lesser-explored issues of embodiment, about bodies deemed anomalous. These texts force readers to look beyond normative ways of framing the body. They articulate what it means to be considered disabled, and how disability and impairment, culturally and materially affect one's sense of being. Sharmistha Pritam’s Atmakatha enriches the repertoire of autobiographical narratives that deal with lesser-known conditions of the human body. As a postcolonial disability memoir, it interrogates intersectional identities built around disability and demonstrates the strengths and limitations of the social model of disability. Her writing also voices the need for empathy and interdependence and the power of the written word in building resilience in an ableist world.