Raymond Antrobus was 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 his story – from childhood to fatherhood – and the stories of other D/deaf cultural figures, from painters to silent film stars, poets to performers – the inspiring models of D/deaf creativity Antrobus did not have growing up.

Told with the electrifying prose of a poet, this ground-breaking and moving memoir explores family, identity, history and language, and what it means to be in a world saturated with noise.