Fall Down Seven Times, Get Up Eight: A young man's voice from the silence of autism (Paperback) - Naoki Higashida

Following his ground-breaking international bestseller THE REASON I JUMP, written when he was only thirteen, Naoki Higashida offers equally illuminating and practical insights into autism from his current perspective as a young man.

The Sunday Times bestseller

Naoki Higashida met international success with THE REASON I JUMP, a revelatory account of life as a thirteen-year-old with non-verbal autism. Now he offers an equally illuminating insight into autism from his perspective as a young adult. In concise, engaging pieces, he shares his thoughts and feelings on a broad menu of topics ranging from school experiences to family relationships, the exhilaration of travel to the difficulties of speech. Aware of how mystifying his behaviour can appear to others, Higashida describes the effect on him of such commonplace things as a sudden change of plan, or the mental steps he has to take simply to register that it's raining. Throughout, his aim is to foster a better understanding of autism and to encourage those with disabilities to be seen as people, not as problems.

With an introduction by David Mitchell, Fall Down Seven Times, Get Up Eight includes a dreamlike short story Higashida wrote for this edition. Both moving and of practical use, the book opens a window into the mind of an inspiring young man who meets the challenges of autism with tenacity and good humour. However often he falls down, he always gets back up.

About the Author

Naoki Higashida was born in Kimitsu, Japan in 1992. Diagnosed with non-verbal autism as a child, he learnt how to communicate using an alphabet grid and when he was thirteen wrote The Reason I Jump. Published in Japan in 2007, its English translation in 2013 was widely acclaimed and became a No. 1 Sunday Times bestseller as well as a New York Times bestseller. It has since been published in over thirty languages.

The film based on the book, directed by Jerry Rothwell and produced by Jeremy Dear, Stevie Lee and Al Morrow, had its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival in 2020, when it won the Audience Award for World Cinema Documentary. It went on to win awards at the Vancouver, Denver and Valladolid International Film Festivals before its international release in 2021.

Higashida's sequel to the book, Fall Down Seven Times, Get Up Eight, about living with autism from his perspective as a young adult, was published in Japan in 2015. An English-language edition, including new material and a short story Higashida wrote especially for it, was published in 2017 and was in turn a Sunday Times bestseller. He has also written children's books, poems and essays.

David Mitchell's novels include Cloud Atlas, The Bone Clocks and, most recently, Utopia Avenue. KA Yoshida was born in Yamaguchi, Japan, and specialised in English Poetry at Notre Dame Seishin University.