The Four Walls of My Freedom

LSE Literary Festival discussion

Donna Thomson will discuss her book, The Four Walls of My Freedom, which describes her family's experience of coping with her son's cerebral palsy. Her own encounter with adversity takes on new meaning when viewed through the lens of Professor Amartya Sen and other philosophers' roadmaps of how to realize a good life against all odds. This lens includes not only people with disability, but also the enormous generation of post-WWII Baby Boomers who are beginning to sense the health care crisis that is looming as they deal with their own aging and increasingly infirm parents.

Donna Thomson, born and educated in Montreal, began her career as an actor, director and teacher. But in 1988, when her son Nicholas was born with severe disabilities, Donna embarked on her second career as a disability activist. A veteran of numerous committees promoting the inclusion of her son, Donna became interested in how families, communities and governments can work together to find new ways of supporting our most vulnerable citizens. When she moved to London in 2006 with her husband (James Wright, Canadian High Commissioner to the UK), Donna became interested in the ways in which innovation within the development sector could inform policymaking for disability in Canada and the UK. The Four Walls of My Freedom is the result of three years of research into how the work of Amartya Sen, Martha Nussbaum and other economist/philosophers can shape our thinking about distributive justice for those who give or receive care.

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