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Breath

A Triumphant Story of Hope and Survival

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Breath

By: Carly-Jay Metcalfe
Narrated by: Elisa Armstrong
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About this listen

I am dying. I know that I'm dying, despite not having been told by my doctors that I am dying. I know I am dying because I'm in the dying room.

Carly-Jay Metcalfe was born with cystic fibrosis, survived a double-lung transplant at the age of 21 and faced a rare cancer at the age of 30. What she has endured should have killed her, but her humour, courage and optimism became her best survival skills.

From her hospitalised childhood to her many friendships, loves and losses, Metcalfe shares the fickle nature of life with candour and warmth. She writes with compelling insight about organ donation, opioid addiction and survivor's guilt, while still managing to find joy amongst the wreckage.

2024, Queensland Literary Awards People’s Choice Queensland Book of the Year Award, Winner

©2024 Carly-Jay Metcalfe. Published by arrangement with University of Queensland Press. (P)2024 Bolinda Publishing Adventurers, Explorers & Survival People with Disabilities Survival

Critic Reviews

'Brilliant, funny, visceral – and real. Those who live close to death really know what it is to be alive. Breath is more than memoir; it’s a conversation we should all be having.' (Inga Simpson, author of Understory: A Life With Trees)
'The only thing more remarkable than Carly-Jay Metcalfe’s story, is the way she tells it. Breath captures the privileges and pains of living in our transitory bodies. The absurdities. The cruelties. The bone-deep joys.' (Beejay Silcox, Canberra-based writer and critic)
'Breath is a taboo-busting examination of illness, propelled by a lust for life and language. Carly-Jay Metcalfe scrutinises the beauty and brutality of the human condition in a voice that is witty and original and true.' (Lech Blaine, author of Car Crash)
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