The Quiet Ear
Released
August 2025
Publisher
UK: Orion (W&N)
US: Hogarth (Penguin Random House)
A ground-breaking exploration of deafness by the award-winning poet Raymond Antrobus.
”The Quiet Ear is a marvel, a story of his life as a Deaf man in a society as unjust as ours, which he investigates with clarity, honesty, endless patience and tenderness for what our world could be . . . Antrobus is a terrific writer, yes, but what is more, he is an honest one
Ilya KaminskyAuthor of Deaf Republic
Raymond Antrobus was first diagnosed as deaf at the age of six. He discovered he had missing sounds – bird calls, whistles, kettles, alarms.
Teachers thought he was slow and disruptive, some didn’t believe he was deaf at all.
The Quiet Ear tells the story of Raymond’s upbringing at the intersection of race and disability. Growing up in East London to an English mother and Jamaican father, educated in both mainstream and deaf schooling systems, Raymond explores the shame of miscommunication, the joy of finding community and shines a light on the decline of deaf education in Britain.
Throughout, Raymond sets his story alongside those of other D/deaf cultural figures – from painters to silent film stars, poets to performers – the inspiring models of D/deaf creativity he did not have growing up.
The Quiet Ear is a groundbreaking and much-needed examination of deafness. A memoir, a cultural history, a call to action.
The Quiet Ear
”A beautiful exploration of an interior life grappling with several magnitudes of loss, and what can be found within them
Hanif AbdurraqibAuthor of A Little Devil in America
The Quiet Ear
Released 28.08.2025
”A moving and expansive book about the long journey of finding a voice, and the joy and power of using it
Seán HewittAuthor of All Down Darkness Wide