Abstract

Cancer narratives, or pathographies, hold significant value in the field of health humanities. As memoirs, these personal narratives occupy a central place in memory studies, offering insight into how individuals remember, interpret, and give meaning to lived experiences. Moreover, memoirs can serve as tools of resistance, healing, or testimony, especially in contexts of trauma, displacement, or marginalization. Memory Studies is an interdisciplinary field that examines how individuals and communities make sense of the past. It investigates not just the psychological mechanisms of remembering, but also the social, cultural, and political frameworks that shape what is remembered, how it is remembered, and why certain memories endure while others fade. This study employs a descriptive qualitative approach by applying Joseph LeDoux’s theory of Emotional Brain and Andy Clark’s theory of Embodied Cognition to the memoir “Healed: How Cancer Gave Me a New Life” written by Manisha Koirala, a Nepalese actor and cancer survivor. This study focuses on memory and embodied identity as expressed through the autobiographical self in Healed (2018). It aims to examine memory as a process of meaning-making within narrative frameworks. The study also attempts to analyze the embodied self through the lived experience of the suffering body-self and to explore the significance of the extended memory in the memoir. While remembering, the powerful role of memory sustained in Healed is in the context of forgiveness both forgiving others and forgiving herself.

Keywords: Life Writing, Memory, Cancer Narratives, Autobiographical Self, Embodied Identity, Emotional Brain, Extended Mind

It is only when a moment becomes a memory that you realize its true value. (Koirala and Kumar 158)

In recent decades, the memoir has emerged as one of the most prominent and versatile literary forms. From bestselling books to digital diaries, Instagram confessions to long-form illness narratives, contemporary culture has embraced the act of narrating the self. Pierre Nora (1998) famously described this era as “an age of commemoration” (609). Similarly, Margaretta Jolly (2001), in The Encyclopedia of Life Writing, defines life writing as an umbrella term that “encompasses the writing of one’s own or another’s life,” including written forms such as diaries and letters, as well as visual and material forms like artifacts, photography, and film (ix). Historically, the term memoir referred to anecdotal texts archived from personal memory, often informal and selective. However, modern memoirs serve as powerful tools for conveying emotional and psychological trauma, especially narratives of survival. These life writings often document stages of coping and defense mechanisms shaped by what Joseph LeDoux calls the “emotional brain.” Daniel L. Schacter argues that “[m]emories are records of how we have experienced events, not replicas of the events themselves” (6). As such, memoir is a nonfictional form that depends on memory and personal reflection drawn from lived experience. Mary Karr claims: “The master memoirist creates such a personal interior space, with memories pieced together, that the reader never loses sight of the enterprise’s tentative nature” (16). Life writing resists the temptation or attempt to tell an individual’s story from womb to tomb and satisfies itself at being a mini-autobiography, mini-history, mini-social commentary and sometimes mini- philosophy. It exercises refraining and forbears exaggerations, lies and secrets or what Dr. Johnson calls “domestik privacies.” Self-expression runs through other literary genres like hagiography, biography, autobiography, ana or anecdotes, character-sketches and so on. These writings pay either rich encomium to the dead or become unbearable panegyric to the living.

In the same vein, cancer narratives, or pathographies, are first-person accounts detailing diagnosis, treatment, recovery, or end-of-life reflections. Anne Hunsaker Hawkins, in Reconstructing Illness: Studies in Pathography (1999), defines pathography as “a personal narrative about the

experience of illness and treatment” (127). These narratives can take various forms, including written memoirs, blogs, oral histories, interviews, poetry, art, and film. Cancer narratives are often shaped by the “emotional brain,” a term popularized by Joseph LeDoux in The Emotional Brain (1996). While the idea of emotion being linked to specific brain regions predates LeDoux, he provides a modern neuroscientific framework to explain these processes. These emotional accounts may also align with the theory of the extended mind introduced in the influential 1998 paper “The Extended Mind” by Andy Clark and David Chalmers. This theory posits that the mind is not confined to the brain or body, but extends into the external environment through tools, language, and memory aids. For instance, using a notebook as a “memory prosthetic” can functionally replace internal memory, highlighting how cognition can be distributed across internal and external systems.

Alongside brain performance, the experience of the body in narrative constructs an embodied identity, a term that refers to how identity is shaped by and expressed through the body. Embodied identity emphasizes that personal identity is not just formed through internal cognition or social roles (such as race, gender, or class), but is deeply rooted in physical and lived experience. Such cancer narratives include Harvey Pekar’s Our Cancer Year (1994), the first graphic cancer memoir; Brian Fies’s Mom’s Cancer (2006); and Miriam Engelberg’s Cancer Made Me a Shallower Person (2006). Simone de Beauvoir’s A Very Easy Death (1965) offers a groundbreaking reflection on her mother’s illness. Other notable memoirs include Marisa Acocella’s Cancer Vixen (2006), which ends on a hopeful note, similar to Healed, and Audre Lorde’s wrenching account of her breast cancer in The Cancer Journals (1980). More recent texts such as Susan Gubar’s Memoir of a Debulked Woman (2012) and Anne Boyer’s The Undying (2019) offer unflinching portrayals of the bodily violence that cancer treatment entails. Paul Kalanithi’s When Breath Becomes Air (2016), written by a neurosurgeon facing terminal lung cancer, offers reflections on mortality, purpose, and the medical profession.

This study focuses on memory and embodied identity in Healed: How Cancer Gave Me a New Life (2018), a poignant memoir by Indian-Nepali actress Manisha Koirala, co-authored with Neelam Kumar. The book chronicles Koirala’s battle with stage IV ovarian cancer, offering an unflinching portrayal of diagnosis, treatment, and recovery. At the peak of her career and amid personal turmoil, Koirala was diagnosed in 2012. She underwent treatment in the United States and documented much of her journey on social media. Despite the physical and emotional toll, she emerged cancer-free in 2014. Koirala’s memoir is not simply about illness; it is about transformation. Cancer becomes a metaphor for her personal struggles including addiction, failed relationships, and emotional trauma. The narrative alternates between past and present, showcasing how illness forced a deep reevaluation of life. Drawing strength from mindfulness, spirituality, and family, she reconstructs a new sense of purpose. Koirala’s healing includes emotional reconciliation and public advocacy. Rather than solely identifying as a cancer survivor, she presents herself as someone reborn. In her words, “Cancer was my greatest teacher,” and the memoir ends with gratitude for life,self-knowledge, and resilience.

The very act of remembering is political because the past is understood through the lens of the present. This process is not passive; meaning is actively constructed in the act of recollection. For the memoirist, writing and sharing can be therapeutic by reclaiming agency and rebuilding identity. As Dan P. McAdams states in “Life Narratives,” “Beginning at a certain point in the human lifespan, many people become authors of their lives, constructing internalized and evolving narratives of the self to provide their lives—as well as others—with some semblance of meaning and purpose” (590). In autobiographical writing, memory is not merely a storehouse of facts, but a dynamic and interpretive process through which the self is formed. Sidonie Smith and Julia Watson, in Reading Autobiography: A Guide for Interpreting Life Narratives, identify five interrelated aspects of autobiographical subjectivity: memory, experience, identity, embodiment, and agency (16). Memory plays a foundational role in shaping the autobiographical self. It allows the narrator to reinterpret the past, filter it through present awareness, and craft a meaningful narrative. Smith emphasizes that memory is not reproductive but constructive and it reshapes the past based on current context, emotional needs, and narrative intention.Embodiment, closely tied to memory, refers to how physical experience gives shape to identity. The autobiographical narrator is not just a voice but an embodied subject, and the body becomes a site of self-examination and narrative meaning. The “self” in life writing is thus not a fixed or purely introspective entity, but a reconstructed identity shaped by cultural narratives, historical contexts, and collective memory. In Healed, Koirala situates herself amid personal crisis and celebrity exposure. Her autobiographical voice is shaped by fear, emotion, and trauma. She blurs the line between her public persona and private pain, constructing an autobiographical self that is whole, honest, and deeply human which is not just an image curated for stardom. As she writes, “My book is a result of intense soul-searching. I have plunged deep into the dark, bottomless pit of painful memories and woven a story out of them” (ix). Through this act of painful retrospection, the autobiographical self emerges—a self that integrates vulnerability, growth, and a desire for meaning. Susan Sontag, in Illness as Metaphor (1978), explores how diseases like cancer and tuberculosis are historically entangled with metaphor, shame, and moral judgment. She writes, “Illness is the night-side of life” (5) and critiques how cancer is portrayed as a killer disease, reducing those afflicted to victims (57). For Sontag, such metaphors distort the reality of illness and burden patients with added psychological and social weight. Cancer has been metaphorically linked to secrecy, repression, punishment, or even societal decay, rather than understood as a biological condition. She calls for stripping illness of its metaphoric overlays so that it can be approached with realism rather than stigma. In Healed, Manisha Koirala’s cancer narrative intersects sharply with Sontag’s critique. As a celebrity and a woman, Koirala faces layered pressures: to appear perfect, youthful, and strong under the persistent gaze of the public and the film industry. Illness, in this context, becomes both a personal ordeal and a public spectacle. Her vulnerability becomes magnified under the camera’s eye, leading to feelings of exposure and shame: “How did they know my dark secret? I felt unnerved by their unrelenting stares” (Koirala and Kumar 19). The societal gaze, informed by cultural myths, often associates illness with failure or moral flaw, echoing Sontag’s observations. For Koirala, the diagnosis not only challenged her health but also her public identity, shaped by years of media projection and patriarchal scrutiny. This duality, between private suffering and public perception, intensifies the trauma of illness. Cancer, metaphorically seen as both punishment and decline, contrasts sharply with Koirala’s on-screen image of vitality and glamour. She notes the discomfort of reentering public spaces after treatment, wearing a hoodie and avoiding eye contact to shield herself from the judgment of onlookers (125). In this sense, her recovery is not only physical but also emotional, as she confronts and gradually dismantles the cultural scripts that silence illness.

By narrating her story openly, Koirala reclaims her agency and challenges the cultural silence surrounding cancer. Rather than conform to the trope of the tragic heroine or fallen star, she redefines herself as a survivor and advocate, offering an alternative narrative to shame and stigma as such “[l]adies, please cast a fond look back at your journey and pat yourself on the back right now!” (200). In doing so, she aligns with Sontag’s vision by dispelling metaphor to humanize illness. Studies show that ovarian cancer survivors often experience Cancer-Related Cognitive Impairment (CRCI), sometimes referred to as “chemo brain.” This condition is marked by memory lapses, reduced attention span, and difficulty concentrating with challenges that persist long after physical recovery. In this fog of cognitive disruption, memory, especially autobiographical memory, becomes fragile. For those affected, writing can serve as an anchor to stabilize slipping recollections, retrieve fragmented experiences, and re-establish a coherent sense of self disrupted by illness. Memoir writing, journaling, poetry, and even personal notes function as tools of memory scaffolding. Manisha Koirala resonates with this notion when she recalls, “upon a few old pages from my diary: I was emotionally vulnerable” (153). Her use of visual imagery, such as photographs of her during treatment, provides an extended sensory record of experience. These artifacts, beyond their documentary value, evoke and reinforce emotional and bodily memories. They operate as extensions of autobiographical memory, offering both therapeutic insight and cognitive continuity. This notion aligns with theories of the extended mind developed by Andy Clark and David Chalmers in their seminal 1998 paper “The Extended Mind.” According to their thesis, cognition does not reside solely within the brain but extends into the environment via tools, technologies, and practices. For instance, a notebook used consistently to record thoughts functions as an external memory device—akin to biological memory in its reliability and integration into thought processes. Clark later expands on this view in Supersizing the Mind, arguing that memory is ecological: it is not only internal but co-constructed by social, physical, and technological surroundings. Similarly, selfies, diaries, and photographs can become parts of the cognitive process when they help individuals construct narrative coherence or make sense of trauma. As the author of Healed, Koirala demonstrates this cognitive permeability. Her use of pen, paper, camera, and diary entries enables her to externalize internal memory struggles, forming a tangible support system for emotional and narrative cohesion. These tools function as embodied memory prosthetics, allowing the self to stabilize amid illness-induced cognitive disarray. By offloading memory into external media, Koirala forms an extended autobiographical self with the use of journals, photos, and affirmations which is not simply therapeutic but it is cognitive. According to Clark and Chalmers, when a cognitive task is consistently supported by a reliable external resource, that resource becomes part of the individual’s mental process. Koirala’s process of anchoring identity in visual and written records aligns with this theoretical model: the act of remembering becomes both embodied and environmentally embedded. Joseph E. LeDoux, in Synaptic Self (2002), explores the neurobiology of emotional memory, emphasizing the roles of the amygdala and hippocampus in encoding and retrieving emotionally significant experiences. LeDoux is known for his Theory of the Emotional Brain, which distinguishes between two key neural pathways: the “low road” and the “high road.” The low road is a fast, automatic path from the thalamus to the amygdala that triggers immediate, unconscious emotional responses, particularly fear. In contrast, the high road routes information through the cortex, enabling slower, more reflective processing and conscious emotional regulation. Koirala’s experience, as depicted in Healed, exemplifies this dual-pathway model. In the early stages of her cancer diagnosis, she describes overwhelming fear, denial, and anxiety, these emotional states likely triggered by the amygdala via the low road. She writes, “Can you imagine living with the fear of cancer having recurred for ten full days?” (150), revealing a raw, unfiltered emotional response typical of acute stress processing. As her illness journey progresses, however, Koirala begins to engage more deeply with her emotional experiences through mindfulness, therapy, and affirmations. She reflects: “I kept trying to feed my subconscious with healing affirmations” (119). This shift demonstrates the high road in action—cortical engagement in reframing and reinterpreting emotional stimuli. Her increasing mindfulness reflects LeDoux’s theory that the brain’s plasticity allows for new emotional patterns to form, enabling individuals to manage trauma and anxiety more adaptively.

Koirala’s evolving emotional narrative mirrors the neurological journey from fear to meaning-making. She transitions from a state of helplessness, “I too felt exactly like it. Trapped. With no hope of escape” (75), to one of clarity and growth. Through the process of remembering and narrating, her emotional brain reorganizes trauma into testimony. The use of spiritual and cognitive tools to regulate fear aligns with LeDoux’s findings that cognitive engagement can modulate amygdala-driven responses. The memoir becomes a site of neurobiological healing as well as literary catharsis. As Koirala observes the world anew post-recovery, she writes, “Why had I not noticed so much of beauty before? Why had I not realized how green the area around my house was?” (137). This moment of sensory reawakening signifies a profound reappraisal of life that is when emotional memory restructures into resilience and gratitude. In Healed, memory serves as a central axis through which pain, identity, and transformation are mediated. The narrative demonstrates how remembering becomes not a passive recollection but an intentional act of meaning-making, where the past is reconstructed through the lens of the present. Koirala’s story shows that healing is not solely biological; it is emotional, cognitive, and narrative. Her memoir embodies the therapeutic function of life writing by transforming fragmented experiences into a coherent autobiographical self. The act of forgiveness—both of others and of herself—emerges as a key component of memory work in the text. Through her reflections, Koirala does not merely recall past traumas but reframes them, rendering her suffering legible and purposeful. This aligns with Sidonie Smith and Julia Watson’s view that memory is not a stable archive but a dynamic process shaped by identity, context, and intention (16). The sensory triggers such as colors, smells, and places, further highlight the embodied nature of memory, suggesting that trauma and healing are lived not just intellectually but physically. Koirala’s understanding of cancer as both a “gift” and a “teacher” reflects an evolved perspective where suffering becomes a source of insight: “I was clear that I wanted to unlearn the bad patterns of attracting drama into my life. I desperately wanted peace and balance in all spheres” (163). Her narrative asserts that illness is not a death sentence, but a call toward awareness, spiritual renewal, and self-reconstruction: “Cancer is not a death sentence. There is hope” (183). In reframing illness as opportunity, Koirala challenges the stigmatizing metaphors historically associated with cancer, as discussed by Susan Sontag, and replaces them with an ethic of gratitude, growth, and resilience. The memoir becomes a medium through which embodied cognition, emotional brain processing, and autobiographical memory converge, illustrating how life writing can extend beyond individual testimony to participate in collective healing. Ultimately, Healed functions as more than just a personal account of survival. It becomes a site of cognitive reconstruction, emotional recalibration, and cultural resistance. By anchoring her lived experience in memory, metaphor, and narrative, Koirala creates an extended self such as one that integrates mind, body, and world. As such, memoirs like Healedare not only slices of personal life but also windows into broader historical, cultural, and psychological truths.

Works Cited

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Karr, Mary. The Art of Memoir. Harper Perennial, 2016.

Koirala, Manisha, and Neelam Kumar. Healed: How Cancer Gave Me a New Life. Rupa Publications, 2018.

LeDoux, Joseph. The Emotional Brain: The Mysterious Underpinnings of Emotional Life. Simon & Schuster, 1996.

Synaptic Self: How Our Brains Become Who We Are. Penguin, 2003.

Smith, Sidonie, and Julia Watson. Reading Autobiography: A Guide for Interpreting Life Narratives. University of Minnesota Press, 2010.

Sontag, Susan. Illness as Metaphor. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1978. Truman, Harry S. Memoirs. Vol. I. Signet Book, 1955.