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The Quiet Ear: An Investigation of Missing Sound: The bighearted, transformative memoir about deafness and identity

Formats & Editions

'A BIG-HEARTED, TRANSFORMATIVE MEMOIR' NEW YORK TIMES

'A QUIET REVOLUTION' IRISH TIMES

'SEARING . . . OFTEN HEART-RENDING' GUARDIAN

Raymond Antrobus was diagnosed as deaf at the age of six. He discovered he had missing sounds - bird calls, whistles, kettles, alarms. Teachers thought he was slow and disruptive, some didn't believe he was deaf at all.

The Quiet Ear tells his story - from childhood to fatherhood - and the stories of other D/deaf cultural figures, from painters to silent film stars, poets to performers - the inspiring models of D/deaf creativity Antrobus did not have growing up.

Told with the electrifying prose of a poet, this groundbreaking and moving memoir explores family, identity, history and language, and what it means to be in a world saturated with noise.

A TIME BOOK OF THE YEAR

Praise for The Quiet Ear

  • A beautiful exploration of an interior life grappling with several magnitudes of loss, and what can be found within them

  • The Quiet Ear is a marvel, a story of his life as a Deaf man in a society as unjust as ours, which he investigates with clarity, honesty, endless patience and tenderness for what our world could be . . . Antrobus is a terrific writer, yes, but what is more, he is an honest one

  • A moving and expansive book about the long journey of finding a voice, and the joy and power of using it

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