Suleika Jaouad

Suleika Jaouad: Biography at a Glance

Suleika Jaouad is an Emmy Award-winning journalist, celebrated TED speaker, and author of the instant New York Times bestselling memoir Between Two Kingdoms.
Between Two Kingdoms recounts Suleika's odyssey of healing and self-discovery after a diagnosis of leukemia at the age of twenty-two and given only a 35% chance of survival.
She and her husband, award-winning musician Jon Batiste, star in the deeply intimate documentary, American Symphony, which captures their journey as Jon attempts to compose a symphony while Suleika undergoes cancer treatment.
During a four-year battle with cancer, Jaouad chronicled her illness in her widely read The New York Times “Life, Interrupted” column and video series, which earned Suleika a News & Documentary Emmy Award.
With her TED Talk “What Almost Dying Taught Me About Living,” Suleika has become an inspiring guide for those living with illness as well as those struggling with and enduring life’s many challenges and interruptions.
She also established the Isolation Journals, a global project to cultivate creativity and ignite the power of human connection in challenging times.
Suleika has served on Barack Obama’s Presidential Cancer Panel, the board of Be the Match, and the Brooklyn Public Library’s Arts & Letters Committee.
A highly sought-after speaker, Suleika engages audiences of all kinds with the story of her life-changing illness, the value of human connection and cultivating a creative practice, what it means to be healthy and well in the twenty-first century, and how to thrive in the wake of life’s inevitable, unexpected interruptions.

Media

Biography

Suleika Jaouad is the author of the instant New York Times bestselling memoir, Between Two Kingdoms, which has been translated into over twenty languages, and her highly anticipated new book, The Book of Alchemy, forthcoming in April 2025. She writes the popular weekly newsletter, the Isolation Journals, which has gathered a creative community of over 200,000 readers from around the world. A three-time cancer survivor, she launched her career from her hospital bed at age 22 with the New York Times column and Emmy Award-winning video series “Life, Interrupted,” and her essays and reporting have appeared in The New York Times Magazine, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, The Guardian, and Vogue, among others. Along with husband Jon Batiste, she is the subject of the Oscar-nominated and Grammy Award-winning documentary American Symphony—a portrait of two artists during a year of extreme highs and lows.

Topics

Survival as a Creative Act

Homegoing: Writing Your Way Toward a Better Life

Making the Most of a Life, Interrupted

At 22, Suleika Jaouad was diagnosed with leukemia and given a 35% chance of survival. From her hospital bed, over the following 3.5 years of intense treatment, she transformed her limitation into an opportunity and wrote an award-winning New York Times column called "Life, Interrupted." When the doctors deemed her “cured”, she hit the road on an ambitious 15,000-mile road trip around the US, interviewing dozens of strangers from all walks of life about how to overcome hardship. Now, she shares their wisdom, and hers, with you.

In this fierce, funny, and moving talk, Jaouad tells her story of how a harrowing illness became a springboard for extraordinary personal and professional transformation. Audiences will leave with tools to thrive in the wake of life's unexpected interruptions.

The Road to Wellness: What Almost Dying Taught Me About Living

Humans are living longer than ever before. Many people now survive illnesses and injuries that would’ve killed our grandparents and parents. Throughout our lives, we travel between the two kingdoms of the sick and the well, spending much of our lives somewhere between the two. In this provocative talk, Emmy award-winning New York Times journalist Suleika Jaouad challenges us to stop seeing our health as binary — sick and healthy, well and unwell, whole and broken. Jaouad shares a firsthand account of navigating the healthcare system as a young cancer survivor, and the inspiring and entirely unexpected lessons learned in recovery. Her unique perspective will change the way you think about what it means to live and to be well in the 21st century.

The Power of Community

In this inspiring and deeply personal talk, Suleika Jaouad explores the profound role of community in navigating life’s most difficult moments. Drawing from her journey as a three-time cancer survivor, bestselling author, and creator of The Isolation Journals, she shares how connection—whether with loved ones, strangers, or creative collaborators—can be a lifeline in times of uncertainty. From launching her career from a hospital bed to building a global community through storytelling and shared reflection, Suleika reveals the transformative power of collective resilience.

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