The most recommended books about leprosy

If I hear someone who has never studied medieval history once in their life refer to the “Dark Ages” as a time when “Science” was banned by the Church one more time, I will actually die, and this book does an amazing job of explaining how ignorant those old myths are.

Falk laces this book with delicious tidbits of the weird and wonderful of medieval scientific (or, to be nerdy, what we would call natural philosophical) ideas. Goat fat enemas? Sure. But there is also the transcription of Persian manuscripts, the invention of mechanical clocks and eyeglasses, and the creation of the University.

The book brings to life a vibrant, interconnected intellectual world and is a testament to how clever medieval people were in circumstances that were much more difficult than our own.

There’s a serene, almost dreamlike quality to The Samurai’s Garden which drew me in right away.

On the eve of WWII, a young man recovering from tuberculosis spends the year at his family’s summer home in Japan. There are actually two gardens in the story: one is the lush green one at his home, and the other is a stone garden in the pine forests, tended by Sachi, a woman who has lived with leprosy for decades.

Though both gardens lead to transformation, Sachi’s garden in particular teaches the narrator that as long as there is beauty in the world, there is life. I loved this novel’s luminous writing and vivid sense of place. It’s a beautiful testament to human loyalty and the healing power of nature.

Also published in 1893, the same year as Chekhov’s Sakhalin Island. Marsden, a London-born nurse, found her vocation tending to sick and abandoned Russians. The book offers a remarkable portrait of the remotest reaches of the Russian Empire, as well as the author’s indomitable spirit.

I met Alan Brennert at a book reading and have been a fan ever since. Molokai is the Hawaiian island where lepers were isolated below towering cliffs. The saga of the colony, Kalaupapa, is revealed by Rachel Kalama, a little Hawaiian girl diagnosed with leprosy in 1892. Wrenched from her home, she is quarantined on Kalaupapa. In spite of this tragic life Rachel survives and forms friendships among the memorable, ostracized characters. She grows up and even marries; in 1940 a cure is found.

Ohana, family, is a recurring theme as the residents make their own connections. As a frequent visitor to Hawaii, I’ve come to love not just the setting but respect the culture. I found this to be a beautifully written, engrossing story.

Have your tissues ready!

Alexis, a present-day heroine, travels to her mother’s childhood home in Greece, intent upon learning the family’s hidden story. Arriving there, she spies the island of Spinalonga, once an actual leper colony. Hislop then switches time periods, taking the reader to the mid-twentieth century, when leprosy and war tore families apart.

I found Hislop’s writing gentle yet wrenching, and I was heartbroken by scenes between mothers and children who had to separate forever due to illness. But I was moved, too, by the strength, resilience, and capacity for love shown by many of the characters.

I enjoy novels that are based on history, with protagonists who are tested to their very limits. I won’t soon forget this book, and I bet you won’t either!

The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever is a fantastic tale of two worlds. There is the Land, a mystical place of good versus evil, with inhabitants who use supernatural means to summon help against the darkness, and our world where the writer Thomas Covenant lives as an outcast to keep his leprosy in remission and to avoid his hostile neighbors. When he is magically transported to the Land and its people beg him to fight the evil for them, he refuses, believing it is a suicidal delusion that will reactivate his disease and kill him. The troubled hero Covenant could not be more compelling, or his dilemma better written, especially as the true-blue inhabitants of the Land struggle to understand why he can’t do the right thing.

Amanda Skenandore’s beautiful and insightful novel about a silent film star who was sent to live in a Louisiana Leper Colony in the 1920s. The book is rich and full of surprising historical details. While it might seem like a downer – it is funny and heartwarming, with a beautiful coming-of-age story and romance at its heart.  Absolutely fascinating.

I love the unexpected beauty and horror of this book which is a collection of stories and a novella. The title also made me wonder, how do you escape a leper colony? Author Tiphanie Yanique is a Caribbean writer whose stunningly poetic voice haunted me long after I finished reading her book. As I read it, I imagined the narrator's Caribbean accent soaking into every syllable. In the key short story, Yanique sets us down in a leper colony on a deserted island for the dying and yet manages to leave room for the miraculous as well. Describing one leper she says, "And when a man with no hands claims that he can fly, you listen."

This deep dive into the people that medieval Europe sidelined is absolutely indispensable for understanding society as a whole.

I get frustrated because when people think about the medieval period, they assume that it was a time when everyone just quietly played along with whatever the Church said, and everyone was a straight white Christian keeping quiet. This book goes and finds the people that the medieval period wanted hidden and brings them to light.

I also like that it helps us to consider that we still partake in the same othering behaviours now. It’s full of fascinating primary sources, and I find it totally absorbing.

This is one of my all-time favorite books! Raised in India by missionary parents, Dr. Brand saw firsthand the effects of leprosy on the body. He trained as a doctor in England and returned to India where he pioneered the concept of the “gift of pain”—the idea that lepers’ “rotting” extremities resulted from the loss of sensation and subsequent infection, not the disease itself. A renowned surgeon, he was the first in the world to use reconstructive surgery on lepers, techniques he later applied to diabetics.

The book goes through the body, system by system, relating the physical body to the body of Christ. My favorite parts are Dr. Brand’s vivid stories of treating the “outcasts” society shuns but God does not.