Being Seen Audiobook By Elsa Sjunneson cover art

Being Seen

One Deafblind Woman's Fight to End Ableism

 Preview
Get this deal Try for $0.00
Offer ends December 16, 2025 11:59pm PT.
Prime logo Prime members: New to Audible? Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Just $0.99/mo for your first 3 months of Audible.
1 audiobook per month of your choice from our unparalleled catalog.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, podcasts, and Originals.
Auto-renews at $14.95/mo after 3 months. Cancel anytime.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for $14.95/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Being Seen

By: Elsa Sjunneson
Narrated by: Elsa Sjunneson
Get this deal Try for $0.00

$14.95/mo after 3 months. Cancel anytime. Offers ends December 16, 2025 11:59pm PT.

$14.95/month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy for $14.99

Buy for $14.99

LIMITED TIME OFFER. Get 3 months for $0.99 a month. Get this deal.

A deafblind writer and professor explores how the misrepresentation of disability in books, movies, and TV harms both the disabled community and everyone else.

As a deafblind woman with partial vision in one eye and bilateral hearing aids, Elsa Sjunneson lives at the crossroads of blindness and sight, hearing and deafness—much to the confusion of the world around her. While she cannot see well enough to operate without a guide dog or cane, she can see enough to know when someone is reacting to the visible signs of her blindness and can hear when they’re whispering behind her back. And she certainly knows how wrong our one-size-fits-all definitions of disability can be.

As a media studies professor, she’s also seen the full range of blind and deaf portrayals on film, and here she deconstructs their impact, following common tropes through horror, romance, and everything in between. Part memoir, part cultural criticism, part history of the deafblind experience, Being Seen explores how our cultural concept of disability is more myth than fact, and the damage it does to us all.

©2021 Elsa Sjunneson. All rights reserved. (P)2021 Simon & Schuster, Inc. All rights reserved. Biographies & Memoirs Disability Awareness Media Studies People with Disabilities Social Sciences Specific Demographics
adbl_web_adaptive_pdp_alc_button_t1
All stars
Most relevant
This autobiography is not only an important story that everyone should read, but it is also engaging and exciting.
Disabled people develop extraordinary resilience and adaptability skills that bring tremendous value to society when people can overcome their fears of a disabled body and open themselves to learning about them.

As a deaf person with a rare disease, this book helped me see and contend with my internalised ableism which is an ongoing battle. Living in an ableist world with disabilities is exhausting and sometimes terrifying. It's great to hear another voice clearly articulate all of the issues at hand.
Thank you, Elsa Sjuneson!

Fascinating and important!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
This book is tightly written and interesting from start to finish. It encourages all of us to examine our preconceptions about disability, and Elsa reads this with warmth and passion so it feels like listening to a friend. Highly recommended!

Great book!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Illuminating, infuriating, illusion-breaking and essential. As read by the author, full of wry honesty.

A Must-Listen

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I wanted and tried wholeheartedly to LOVE this book the whole time, but unfortunately I just cannot say that it resonated with me. I can’t quite pinpoint the exact reasons, there were some things that she says blind people do not do that I know the members of my family who are blind do in-fact do, I think that’s a generational thing. There were things she explains away that my disabled students believe are way bigger deals, and she is definitely entitled to her own opinions and obviously her life experiences have shaped those things. I personally believe this book is less about disability and ableism and more about LGBTQIA and how those beliefs and upbringing affected the author as a disabled woman. I wouldn’t say to not read it, but it definitely was not my favorite.

Did not resonate with me

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
As a blind person myself, I absolutely loved this book. While listening to it, I almost constantly felt like reacting to it in the same way one might react to a tweet they agreed with. By that I mean my reaction to nearly every sentence was "Yes! This!" Being Seen is a harsh, real, necessary confrontation as well as being a memoir. Everyone should read this book, disabled or not, because to be honest, we all have a lot to learn. I know I did.

To Open Your Eyes, Read This Book

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
See more reviews