The Kissing Bug: Race and Disease Explored

The Kissing Bug cover
The Kissing Bug by Daisy Hernandez (Tin House Books 2021)

Check out past contributor Daisy Hernández’s new book, The Kissing Bug, to join Daisy as she unravels family and medical secrets surrounding a disease that led to her aunt’s death. While researching for the book, Daisy spoke to patients, doctors, epidemiologists, and veterinarians, all the while uncovering the impact of Chagas – also known as the kissing bug disease – on the Latinx community. The Kissing Bug: A True Story of an Insect, a Family and a Nation’s Neglect of a Deadly Disease explores how the confluence of infectious disease, racism, and for-profit healthcare systems have relegated Chagas to the dark.

Hernández raises damning questions about which infectious diseases get attention and whom we believe to be deserving of care.

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An engaging, eye-opening read for anyone looking to learn more about the human suffering caused by the collision of a tropical parasite and years of neglect by the United States’ medical system.

Kris Newby, author of Bitten: The Secret History of Lyme Disease and Biological Weapons

The Kissing Bug was published in June by Tin House Books and you can by it from Bookshop or IndieBound. Daisy’s was interviewed for Issue 16 of SR and she is also the author of the memoir A Cup of Water Under My Bed and coeditor of Colonize This! Young Women of Color on Today’s Feminism. To learn more about Daisy, visit her website or follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

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