A head and shoulders shot of a girl with dark curly hair wearing a blue top and multi-coloured neckerchief stands in front of a woman with long brown hair, both of them smiling into the camera.

Ali Isaac

Introducing Imperfect Bodies, a Beautiful Uplifting Memoir by Ali Isaac

Céad míle fáilte, a hundred thousand welcomes! I’m Ali Isaac, and I write at the intersection of female senescence with literature and landscape. You can find my book, Imperfect Bodies, in all good book stores. Spread the love among independent book shops if you can. Grá Mór!

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Reading Imperfect Bodies – a memoir that stops you in your tracks because it’s deeply personal, intelligent and reflective – is like striking gold.

— Woman & Home Magazine

  • A girl with dark curly hair leaning back on a taller dark-haired woman on a seashore of black sand turned away from the cameral and gazing out to sea, The sky is blue, there are barren rocky mountains in the background, and there is white surf where waves are crashing on the shore.
    Imperfect Bodies reflects on motherhood, identity, the female body, the able and disabled body, while examining social and political definitions of normality.
  • A girl with dark curly hair wearing a brightly striped top and bandana neckerchief is smiling widely into the camera. Behind her a cloudy sky is reflected into the surface of a lake.
    “So beautifully written, such an honest and raw account, a scrupulous interrogation of perceptions and attitudes towards disability in the modern world.” – Sara Baume, author, artist
  • A head and shoulders shot of a girl with dark curly hair wearing a blue top and multi-coloured neckerchief stands in front of a woman with long brown hair, both of them smiling into the camera.
    “Imperfect Bodies is a gorgeous memoir, a portrait of a profoundly loving relationship between mother and daughter that manages at once to serve as a meditation on ‘disability’ and the relationship to the self.” – Oona Frawley, author, professor of English
  • Close up of girl with dark curly hair wearing a turquoise hoody and bandana smiled into the camera. The silver surface of a lake glints behind her.
    “Imperfect Bodies brilliantly tells the compelling story of a mother falling in love with her beautiful daughter.” – Moynagh Sullivan, artist, professor of English

Ali On Podcasts

I chatted to Emma Reed Turrell about what it’s like to parent a disabled child.

I chatted to Joe Finnegan on Northern Sound radio about life as a carer.

I had a lovely conversation with Layla O’Mara about Imperfect Bodies.

I even had a book tour in the UK, sponsored by Culture Ireland

Carys and I had an article, ‘Raising Carys’, published in Woman & Home magazine after the editor read my book.

And we had a lovely feature in the Sunday Independent after I was interviewed by journalist Liadan Hynes.