Abstract
The present paper describes the story of the development of a graphic novel—a story about superheroes—written by adolescent cancer patients on the Youth Project at the Istituto Nazionale Tumori in Milan (Italy). Nineteen patients from fifteen to twenty-five years old (fifteen receiving treatment for their cancer, four who had recently completed their treatments) participated in a four month creative writing laboratory managed by a professional teacher. The output from the writing laboratory was a written text that was used as the script for a graphic novel drawn by professional cartoonists and working together with the patients. Through their story, adolescent patients succeeded in voicing their dreams and fears. It was the adolescent patients themselves who explained how they had each tried to bring out the superhero inside them. This project describes the amazing powers of adolescents with cancer and opens a precious window on their inner world, enabling us to gain a better understanding of what they are really thinking and feeling through their own words.
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Acknowledgments
The authors wish to thank the Associazione Bianca Garavaglia Onlus, which supports the Youth Project; without the Associazione Bianca Garavaglia, the Youth Project would not exist.
The authors also thank Lorenza Ghinelli for conducting the creative writing laboratory with the patients, Edoardo Rosati for believing in the project, the publisher Rizzoli Lizard, Simone Romani and Mammaiuto for the graphic novel’s implementation, the Associazione Dudu For You and PMG S.p.A./Poletto Family for their support.
Sadly, not every patient has the superpower to win against cancer—not yet at least. Real life is not a graphic novel, and some of the adolescents who worked on this project are unfortunately no longer here today to see their work published. “Loop: there’s no going back” is dedicated to them.
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Ferrari, A., Veneroni, L., Signoroni, S. et al. Loop: there’s no going back: A Graphic Novel by Adolescent Cancer Patients on the Youth Project in Milan. J Med Humanit 40, 505–511 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10912-019-09561-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10912-019-09561-1