All disabled people deserve to see themselves reflected in literature—not as objects of pity or inspiration, but as complex humans living full lives. This list centers disabled authors and authentic representation.
This list prioritizes Own Voices (disabled authors writing about disability), authentic representation, and diverse global perspectives. It's always growing—suggest additions via How to Contribute.
Legend:
Start here. These are foundational texts for understanding disability rights, culture, and justice.
✦ 📘 Disability Visibility: First-Person Stories from the Twenty-First Century – Alice Wong, ed. (2020). 37 essays by disabled writers covering diverse experiences. "A galvanizing collection" published for the ADA's 30th anniversary. The single best introduction to contemporary disability experience.
✦ 📘 Care Work: Dreaming Disability Justice – Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha (2018). Essays exploring disability justice as framework centering sick and disabled queer, trans, Black, and brown people. Maps "access as radical love" and collective care practices.
✦ No Pity: People with Disabilities Forging a New Civil Rights Movement – Joseph P. Shapiro (1993). The foundational text illustrating "the new thinking by disabled people that there is no pity or tragedy in disability, and that it is society's myths, fears, and stereotypes that make being disabled difficult."
✦ 📘 Demystifying Disability: What to Know, What to Say, and How to Be an Ally – Emily Ladau (2021). Accessible guide covering etiquette, language, and avoiding common pitfalls. Excellent entry point for allies and newly disabled people.
✦ 📘 Being Heumann: An Unrepentant Memoir of a Disability Rights Activist – Judith Heumann with Kristen Joiner. Life story of the legendary activist who had polio, led the Section 504 sit-in, and pushed through the ADA. Heumann devoted her life to "subverting the presumption that disability is a tragedy."
✦ 📘 Haben: The Deafblind Woman Who Conquered Harvard Law – Haben Girma. First Deafblind Harvard Law graduate shares her journey, arguing that disability is an opportunity for innovation. Rejects pity, highlights "resilience and advocacy."
✦ 📘 Good Kings Bad Kings – Susan Nussbaum. Novel set in Chicago institution for disabled youth, narrated through multiple disabled teen voices. Nussbaum, a disability rights activist and wheelchair user, writes with "remarkable authenticity"—potentially "chang[ing] forever the conversation" about disability.
✦ 📘 An Unkindness of Ghosts – Rivers Solomon. Space opera with Black autistic protagonist whose neurodivergence is woven "seamlessly and nonexploitatively" into the plot. Character explicitly rejects "cure."
✦ No Pity: People with Disabilities Forging a New Civil Rights Movement – Joseph P. Shapiro (1993). [See Essential Reading]
A Disability History of the United States – Kim E. Nielsen. Sweeping survey positioning disabled people at the center of American history from colonial times to present. Covers disabled veterans, freak shows, eugenics, and the disability rights movement. Unearths hidden narratives including enslaved people with disabilities and Deaf communities in Martha's Vineyard.
📘 The Disability Rights Movement: From Charity to Confrontation – Doris Zames Fleischer & Frieda Zames. Comprehensive history by disability activists covering key legislation and grassroots organizing.
Patient No More: People with Disabilities Securing Civil Rights – History of the 504 sit-in.
📘 Deaf President Now! – John B. Christiansen & Sharon N. Barnartt. Account of the 1988 Gallaudet University protest.
The Capitol Crawl and the Americans with Disabilities Act – Documentation of the 1990 action.
The State Boys Rebellion – Michael D'Antonio. Investigation of the Fernald State School.
Imbeciles: The Supreme Court, American Eugenics, and the Sterilization of Carrie Buck – Adam Cohen. History of Buck v. Bell and American eugenics.
Ugly Laws: Disability in Public – Susan Schweik. History of laws that criminalized disabled people's presence in public.
🌍 Disability in the Global South – Shaun Grech & Karen Soldatic (eds.). Critical perspectives on disability in majority world contexts.
🌍 Disability and the Politics of Education: An International Reader – Susan Gabel & Scot Danforth.
✦ 📘 Care Work: Dreaming Disability Justice – Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha (2018). [See Essential Reading]
📘 Skin, Tooth, and Bone: The Basis of Movement is Our People – Sins Invalid. Disability justice primer from the performance collective that developed the framework.
📘 Brilliant Imperfection: Grappling with Cure – Eli Clare. Explores the politics of cure, drawing on Clare's experiences as a disabled, genderqueer activist.
Crip Theory: Cultural Signs of Queerness and Disability – Robert McRuer. Academic text on intersections of queer and disability studies.
The Minority Body: A Theory of Disability – Elizabeth Barnes. Philosophical argument that disability is neutral difference.
📘 Disability Rhetoric – Jay Dolmage. How rhetoric and language shape disability experience.
✦ 📘 Demystifying Disability – Emily Ladau. [See Essential Reading]
Disability Etiquette: Tips on Interacting with People with Disabilities – United Spinal Association. Free practical guide.
📘 A Quick & Easy Guide to Sex & Disability – A. Andrews. Illustrated guide.
✦ 📘 Disability Visibility – Alice Wong, ed. [See Essential Reading]
📘 Disability Visibility: 17 First-Person Stories for Today – Alice Wong, ed. Young adult adaptation.
📘 Crippled: Austerity and the Demonization of Disabled People – Frances Ryan. UK-focused essays.
🌍 Nothing About Us Without Us: Disability Oppression and Empowerment – James Charlton.
✦ 📘 Being Heumann – Judith Heumann. [See Essential Reading]
📘 The Diving Bell and the Butterfly – Jean-Dominique Bauby (France). Poetic memoir composed entirely through eye blinks after a stroke left Bauby with locked-in syndrome. His imagery-rich reflections offer an intimate look at disability from the inside, without pity.
📘 I'm Walking as Straight as I Can – Geri Jewell. Memoir by actress with cerebral palsy, first disabled person in a recurring TV role.
📘 My Body Politic – Simi Linton. Disability studies scholar's memoir.
📘 Sitting Pretty: The View from My Ordinary Resilient Disabled Body – Rebekah Taussig.
📘 Mean Baby – Selma Blair (2022). Unflinchingly honest memoir about life with multiple sclerosis, addiction, and self-discovery. Blair calls her MS diagnosis a "surprising salvation" and "engag[es] with her MS starkly and movingly."
📘 Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness – Susannah Cahalan. Autoimmune encephalitis initially misdiagnosed as psychiatric illness.
📘 The Invisible Kingdom: Reimagining Chronic Illness – Meghan O'Rourke.
✦ 📘 Haben – Haben Girma. [See Essential Reading]
📘 The Story of My Life – Helen Keller (1903). Classic autobiography of the Deafblind author and activist. Keller describes learning language by touch, dispelling myths about "incapacity" of Deafblind people.
📘 Deaf Utopia: A Memoir—and a Love Letter to a Way of Life – Nyle DiMarco. Celebration of Deaf culture.
📘 Train Go Sorry: Inside a Deaf World – Leah Hager Cohen.
📘 Blind Rage: Letters to Helen Keller – Georgina Kleege.
📘 And There Was Light – Jacques Lusseyran. French Resistance member.
📘 Touching the Rock – John Hull.
📘 Thinking in Pictures – Temple Grandin. Classic autism memoir.
📘 Look Me in the Eye – John Elder Robison.
🌍 📘 The Reason I Jump – Naoki Higashida (Japan). Nonverbal autistic teenager explains his inner world.
📘 Loud Hands: Autistic People, Speaking – ASAN anthology.
📘 Driven to Distraction / ADHD 2.0 – Edward Hallowell & John Ratey.
📘 An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness – Kay Redfield Jamison. Psychiatrist's account of bipolar disorder.
📘 The Collected Schizophrenias – Esmé Weijun Wang.
📘 Prozac Nation – Elizabeth Wurtzel.
📘 Madness: A Bipolar Life – Marya Hornbacher.
✦ 📘 Good Kings Bad Kings – Susan Nussbaum. [See Essential Reading]
📘 Get a Life, Chloe Brown – Talia Hibbert (UK). Contemporary romance featuring Black British heroine with fibromyalgia. Chronic pain naturally woven into love story—Chloe remains vibrant and desirable with her disability. Hibbert drew on her own fibromyalgia.
📘 So Lucky – Nicola Griffith. Literary thriller following nonprofit director diagnosed with MS. Refuses pity, explores internalized ableism and empowerment. Griffith has MS.
🌍 Things Fall Apart – Chinua Achebe (Nigeria). Classic African novel that critiques traditional stigma against disability in Igbo society, showing how disabled infants were cast out. "Promotes compassion for all people."
📘 The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath. Semi-autobiographical novel tracing mental illness and 1950s psychiatric treatment. Frank, empathetic depiction was groundbreaking—invites readers inside rather than judging.
Flowers for Algernon – Daniel Keyes. Classic about intellectual disability. [Note: some find problematic; included for cultural significance]
✦ 📘 An Unkindness of Ghosts – Rivers Solomon. [See Essential Reading]
📘 Six of Crows – Leigh Bardugo. Fantasy heist with protagonist Kaz Brekker who has permanent leg injury and uses cane. Never "cured"—"his cane became a declaration" of resilience. Kaz explicitly refuses magical cure. Bardugo has osteonecrosis.
📘 On the Edge of Gone – Corinne Duyvis (Netherlands). Dystopian YA with autistic heroine during comet impact. Duyvis (autistic, founder of #OwnVoices) centers autistic perspective without stereotype—Denise's skills defy others' low expectations.
📘 Unseelie – Ivelisse Housman. Fae fantasy with autistic Latina changeling. Housman (autistic Puerto Rican author) crafts neurodivergence as identity, not problem.
📘 The Vela – Yoon Ha Lee, Becky Chambers, Rivers Solomon, SL Huang.
📘 A Spindle Splintered – Alix E. Harrow.
📘 The Witch King – Martha Wells.
📘 Get a Life, Chloe Brown – Talia Hibbert. [See Literary Fiction]
📘 Act Your Age, Eve Brown – Talia Hibbert. Autistic heroine.
📘 The Kiss Quotient – Helen Hoang. Autistic heroine by autistic author.
📘 The Bride Test – Helen Hoang.
📘 A Duke by Default – Alyssa Cole. Hero with dyslexia.
📘 Not So Nice Guy – R.S. Grey.
Section in development. Suggest additions via How to Contribute.
📘 Show Me a Sign – Ann Clare LeZotte. [See Middle Grade]
📘 Accidents of Nature – Harriet McBryde Johnson. [See Young Adult]
📘 Sick Kids in Love – Hannah Moskowitz. Teen romance between two chronically ill protagonists. "They don't die in this one." Deliberately subverts tragedy narrative—teens managing illness, finding love, joking about hospital visits.
📘 Accidents of Nature – Harriet McBryde Johnson. Set at 1970 camp for disabled teens. Johnson (disability rights attorney with neuromuscular disability) uses fiction to "uncover the need for a disability rights movement." Includes satirical "Telethon to Stamp Out Normalcy." Sharp dialogue, challenges internalized ableism.
📘 Five Feet Apart – Rachael Lippincott. CF romance. [Note: some controversy over accuracy]
📘 Turtles All the Way Down – John Green. OCD protagonist.
📘 History Is All You Left Me – Adam Silvera.
📘 On the Edge of Gone – Corinne Duyvis. [See Speculative Fiction]
📘 Six of Crows – Leigh Bardugo. [See Speculative Fiction]
📘 Unseelie – Ivelisse Housman. [See Speculative Fiction]
📘 A Kind of Spark – Elle McNicoll (Scotland). Autistic 11-year-old campaigns for witch-trial memorial. McNicoll (autistic) dedicates book to "all children with happy, flapping hands." Proud, positive autism portrayal—Addie refuses to change who she is.
📘 Show Me a Sign – Ann Clare LeZotte. Historical fiction set in 1805 Martha's Vineyard Deaf community. Mary Lambert has grown up where nearly everyone signs—never felt isolated. "Mak[es] you forever question your own ideas about what is normal." LeZotte is Deaf.
Out of My Mind – Sharon M. Draper. Melody, 11, has CP and cannot speak—but has brilliant mind and photographic memory. Shows CP "limits her body, but not her mind."
Wonder – R.J. Palacio. Auggie, 10, has craniofacial difference. Focus on humanity rather than condition. [Note: author not disabled; some criticism of film casting]
📘 Roll with It – Erin Entrada Kelly.
📘 I Am Not a Label – Cerrie Burnell (UK). 34 short biographies of notable disabled people—Frida Kahlo, Stevie Wonder, Judith Heumann, etc. "Stylish" and empowering, written for kids in stigma-free way. Burnell is disabled former CBeebies presenter.
Susan Laughs – Jeanne Willis. Child does everything other kids do; wheelchair only revealed at end.
My Brother Charlie – Holly Robinson Peete & Ryan Peete.
🌍 Emmanuel's Dream – Laurie Ann Thompson. Ghanaian cyclist born with one leg.
Section in development.
📘 Beauty is a Verb: The New Poetry of Disability – ed. Sheila Black, Jennifer Bartlett, Michael Northen.
📘 Cripple Poetics – Petra Kuppers & Neil Marcus.
📘 The Collected Poems of Vassar Miller – Vassar Miller.
Fiction:
Nonfiction:
Section in development. Suggest additions via How to Contribute.
Most entries on this list are US-based. This section highlights US-specific history and context.
Section in development.
Section in development.
Section in development.
This list is always growing. To suggest additions:
This page centers disabled authors and authentic disability representation. Compiled by DisabilityWiki community.
Last updated: December 2025