Between Two Kingdoms by Suleika Jaouad, reviewed in-depth

Suleika Jaouad is a motivational speaker, author, and advocate. Her blog and column titled Life, Interrupted have each touched the souls of millions of people worldwide. After this success, Jaouad published her memoir, Between Two Kingdoms: A Memoir of a Life Interrupted, which received numerous starred reviews and awards.

Here, we will look at who Suleika Jaouad is and review her memoir.

Who is Suleika Jaouad?

Suleika Jaouad was born in New York City in 1988 to a Swiss mother and a Tunisian father. She attended the Juilliard School’s pre-college program, where she studied the double bass.

Jaouad earned her bachelor’s degree at Princeton University in 2010 and received her MFA in writing and literature from Bennington College.

Upon graduation, Suleika Jaouad dreamed of being a foreign correspondent. However, her aspirations were cut short when she learned that she had a rare form of leukemia called acute myeloid leukemia at the age of 22.

After her diagnosis, Jaouad spent her days in a hospital bed at Sloan-Kettering. Unlike other young adults, she couldn’t have a job, travel, party, or hang out with friends. Her immune system was so weak due to chemotherapy that even a paper cut or a handshake could kill her.

At that time, her friends and family suggested something they called “The 100 days project.” They agreed to do something creative every day for 100 days straight. Jaouad’s boyfriend sent her daily video reports, her father wrote down 100 memories from his childhood, her mom painted, etc.

Jaouad chose writing. She promised herself she would write something every day. Over time, writing became much more to Jaouad. It represented a way of organizing time and reconnecting with herself—and that’s how The New York Times’ “Life Interrupted” column was born.

Around a year after her cancer diagnosis, Jaouad was preparing for a bone marrow transplant with her brother as the donor. The procedure wasn’t complicated, but the chances of her surviving the first 100 days after the surgery were 35%.

Thankfully, Jaouad beat the odds and lived to tell her story. Her column went on to win an Emmy Award in New Approaches: Arts, Lifestyle, and Culture in 2014.

Jaouad didn’t stop there. She continued to encourage and inspire people worldwide via her TED talks, podcasts, features, and essays that have appeared in The Guardian, Vogue, The Los Angeles Times, NPR, and many others.

During the pandemic, Jaouad created the Isolation Journals, a project aimed at helping people transform their isolation into artistic solitude.

While Barack Obama was president, Jaouad served on the Presidential Cancer Panel. She was also a part of the national advisory board of the Family Reach and the Bone Marrow and Cancer Foundation.

Jaouad received the Red Door Advocacy & Community Service Award and has been an artist in residence at ArtYard, Ucross, and the Kerouac Project.

After recovering, Jaouad took a 100-day road trip with her dog Oscar. On this road trip, she visited individuals who wrote to her when she was sick.

Jaouad is married to the musician Jon Batiste. Batiste has a very successful career and has won several Grammy awards, including one for Album of the Year We Are.

A review of Between Two Kingdoms: A Memoir of a Life Interrupted

Let’s start by explaining the book’s title. As you may notice, the last part, Life Interrupted, is the name of her The New York Times column she wrote while sick.

The title was also inspired by Susan Sontag’s work of critical theory called Illness as Metaphor. In this work, Sontag wrote that every person holds dual citizenship as soon as they’re born—citizenship to the kingdom of well and the kingdom of sick.

As Jaouad was literally between these two kingdoms, she decided there was no better title for her book.

This book is a collection of Jaouad’s memoirs that describe her illness in great detail. What makes this bestselling book stand out is that there’s no self-pity. Instead, the author is brutally honest in describing a situation she once considered unimaginable.

This book is an ode to persistence, strength, and the power of will. Jaouad describes her struggles and experiences, mentioning the people she met along her journey toward recovery. She also explains how she and the people around her deal with guilt, grief, and desolation.

The second half of the book switches to the present tense and deals with the aftermath and her road trip. Some may consider this bold shift in tone jarring, but it has an important point. The author describes the tension between past and present, health and sickness, and urges the forging of a new balance.

As the author herself stated, recovery represents a bold, terrifying discovery; it’s not something that takes one to their pre-illness state.

This incredible book was published by Random House in 2021.

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FAQ

What is Suleika Jaouad’s prognosis?

Jaouad learned she had cancer in November 2021. She’s currently undergoing treatments and regularly posts about them on her Instagram profile. When she was first diagnosed with cancer, she was given a 35% chance of survival, but she beat the odds.

How did Jon Batiste meet Suleika Jaouad?

They met at a band camp in Sarasota Springs.

How did Suleika Jaouad find out that she had cancer?

The first symptom was a maddening itch she felt all over her body while she was in college. After months of wrong diagnoses, doctors finally discovered what she had acute myeloid leukemia.