photo by: Eddie Hernandez Photography

Alice Wong, left, is the editor of "Disability Visibility."

An anthology of essays compiled by a disability rights activist will be the University of Kansas Common Book for 2022-2023.

“Disability Visibility: First Person Stories from the Twenty-First Century” has been selected by KU leaders as the common book that students will be encouraged to read during the next school year.

The book is edited by Alice Wong, who was born with spinal muscular atrophy and who has become an active promoter of disability rights as the founder and project coordinator of the Disability Visibility Project and as a former presidential appointee on the National Council on Disability.

As part of the Common Book program, KU said plans were underway for Wong to give a public talk at KU in fall 2022. A KU selection committee chose the book because of its “range of diverse perspectives on the lived experience of both visible and invisible disability,” according to a KU press release.

The Common Book program is presented by KU Libraries, the Hall Center for the Humanities and KU Academic Success. Traditionally, many faculty incorporate the common book into their classes, in addition to KU making the book widely available to students.

Previous common books chosen by KU are listed below:

2021-2022 – “Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants,” Robin Wall Kimmerer

2020-2021 – “Educated: A Memoir,” Tara Westover

2019-2020 – “Tales of Two Americas: Stories of Inequality in a Divided Nation,” edited by John Freeman

2018-2019 – “Create Dangerously: The Immigrant Artist at Work,” Edwidge Danticat

2017-2018 – “Citizen: An American Lyric,” Claudia Rankine

2016-2017 – “Between the World and Me,” Ta-Nehisi Coates

2015-2016 – “A Farewell to Arms,” Ernest Hemingway

2014-2015 – “The Center of Everything,” Laura Moriarty

2013-2014 – “The Worst Hard Time,” Timothy Egan

2012-2013 – “Notes from No Man’s Land,” Eula Biss