Jake Goldsmith is an author with cystic fibrosis and a list of other chronic health conditions. He lives in Suffolk, England.

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His writing mainly focuses on the phenomenology of illness, philosophy, and how illness defines one’s experiences.

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His memoir Neither Weak Nor Obtuse was originally published in 2019, and explores Jake's literary and philosophical influences, as well as the perceptions and realities of living with a life-limiting chronic illness.

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The title of the book comes from a phrase within a letter that Boris Pasternak sent to Albert Camus in 1957, stating that while there may not be anything beyond ‘sensualism’, a sensualism that is completely naked and extreme becomes weak and obtuse. This limitation is explored in Jake’s work.

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A new edition of Neither Weak Nor Obtuse was published by Sagging Meniscus Press in July 2022. You can order it here. 

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Jake's main intellectual influences include Svetlana Alexievich, Raymond Aron, W.N.P. Barbellion, Albert Camus, Manès Sperber, and Simone Weil.

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Jake is the founder and director of The Barbellion Prize, an international book prize for ill and disabled authors.

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More From Jake:

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Jake wrote an epistolary essay while admitted to Royal Papworth Hospital in May 2021 - published in Issue No. 2 of the quarterly magazine Exacting Clam.

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From Royal Papworth Hospital.

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Jake's brief essay On Illness and Possibility is published in Issue No. 3 of Exacting Clam, Winter 2021.

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Disabled Thoughts is published in Issue No. 5 of Exacting Clam.

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Spurious Thoughts is published in Issue No. 7 of Exacting Clam.