Somebody Somewhere: Breaking Free from the World of Autism

by Donna Williams

Overview

In the acclaimed sequel to Nobody Nowhere—in which Donna Williams gives readers a guided tour of life with autism—Williams explores the four years since her diagnosis and her attempts to leave her "world under glass" and live normally. NPR sponsorship.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780812925241
Publisher:	Crown Publishing Group
Publication date:	04/04/1995
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	256
Product dimensions:	5.54(w) x 8.21(h) x 0.58(d)

About the Author

Donna Williams was born in Australia in 1963. She was assessed at age two as psychotic, labeled disturbed and tested for deafness throughout childhood before being diagnosed as autistic in 1990. She was an international best-selling author with nine published books, an artist, singer-songwriter and screenwriter. One of the most well known people with autism in the world, Donna was a renowned international public speaker, a qualified teacher and worked as an autism consultant.

Editorial Reviews

"This book deserves every superlative a reviewer can muster."
                             -The Globe and Mail

"To be able to do what [Donna Williams] has done, by age 27, and to write about it so poignantly and so articulately is to function on a higher level than most 'normal' folk achieve in a lifetime."
                             -Boston Globe

"By illuminating her own unique perceptions, she allows us to understand our own perceptions as never before...And oh, can she write."
                             -The New York Times Review of Books

"The artistically gifted Williams continues to build a bridge between 'my' world and 'the'world."
                             -Publishers Weekly

"Somebody Somewhere...provides a shining light into the dark mystery of autism."
                             -Detroit Free Press

From the Publisher

In Nobody Nowhere , the author reported on her escape, after 25 years, from the hallucinatory prison of autism inhabited by her multiple personalities. The artistically gifted Williams continues to build a bridge between ``my'' world and ``the'' world in this detailed follow-up, weaving recently recovered memories into accounts of her ongoing daily life. In her native Australia, she began to teach children with special needs--autistics among them--in whom she relived her own earlier struggles. With exquisite sensitivity, she conveys her impressions of people and surroundings as might someone returning from an extended trip. Particularly moving is her newly claimed sense of inhabiting her own body, a connection which she describes as ``the first security in life, which had been missing.'' Travel abroad to publicize her book and meet with foreign publishers posed another challenge, which she met with courage. (Mar.)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

In the sequel to her best-selling account of an autistic life, Nobody Nowhere ( LJ 9/92), Williams describes the few years that followed the completion of her first manuscript. Her extraordinary and painful growth as she completes her education, continues psychiatric treatment, experiences the unwelcome publicity brought about by the publication of Nobody Nowhere , and subsequent author tour is clearly shown through her writing. Williams does an excellent job of taking the reader inside the mind and emotions of an autistic person. A powerful book both as a biography and as a study of a medical disorder, this is sure to be as popular as her earlier title. Most public libraries should purchase. Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 10/15/93.-- Marguerite Mroz, Baltimore Cty. P.L.

Library Journal