A detailed book about an extraordinary man and his belief that “only dialogue can save humanity from the perils of war.”
Berrah’s debut memoir offers a history of the struggle for self-rule by North African nations and a vision of a peaceful world.
The author began life in Aïn Beïda, a small town in Algeria, at a time when France had annexed the country. Keenly aware of the second-class status accorded native Algerians, he resented the fact that his teachers taught French history but “nothing about our Algerian heritage.” As a medical student in France, he met other Muslim students dealing with discrimination. In the early 1950s, they formed the Association of North African Muslim Students, one of numerous anti-colonial associations with which he became involved. Berrah accepted a Ministry of Health assignment in the war-torn Moroccan town of Missour, earning him praise from peers and supervisors. Later, at the University of Indiana, he made a scientific breakthrough involving the inhibition of DNA synthesis; he accepted a professorship at the Yale School of Medicine in 1963 and was elected to the New York Academy of Sciences in 1966. Feeling the need to “work for a better world,” he accepted a post as an adviser to the Foreign Ministry of Côte d’Ivoire in 1965 and became President Félix Houphouët-Boigny’s closest counselor. In the course of his career, he met with world leaders, including several American presidents, Charles De Gaulle, Fidel Castro, and Golda Meir. The memoir’s detailed, relatively dispassionate prose reflects Berrah’s commitment to diplomacy. He tells one story that effectively illustrates his creativity in that arena; he was asked at a 1973 summit of Non-Aligned Countries how to handle an inflammatory speech by Castro, in progress, which was loaded with personal insults about President Houphouët-Boigny. Berrah simply had Castro’s microphone feed cut and “pretend[ed] there was a technical problem.” Although the multitude of association names and acronyms is overwhelming at times, readers will appreciate the author’s meticulous descriptions of the places he visited; for example, he tells of how the peacocks at President Houphouët-Boigny’s palace “showed off their vivid blue bodies, radiant with emerald iridescence.”
A detailed book about an extraordinary man and his belief that “only dialogue can save humanity from the perils of war.”Pub Date: March 4, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-578-42031-8
Page Count: 644
Publisher: Dr. Ghoulem Berrah Foundation
Review Posted Online: March 21, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...
A neurosurgeon with a passion for literature tragically finds his perfect subject after his diagnosis of terminal lung cancer.
Writing isn’t brain surgery, but it’s rare when someone adept at the latter is also so accomplished at the former. Searching for meaning and purpose in his life, Kalanithi pursued a doctorate in literature and had felt certain that he wouldn’t enter the field of medicine, in which his father and other members of his family excelled. “But I couldn’t let go of the question,” he writes, after realizing that his goals “didn’t quite fit in an English department.” “Where did biology, morality, literature and philosophy intersect?” So he decided to set aside his doctoral dissertation and belatedly prepare for medical school, which “would allow me a chance to find answers that are not in books, to find a different sort of sublime, to forge relationships with the suffering, and to keep following the question of what makes human life meaningful, even in the face of death and decay.” The author’s empathy undoubtedly made him an exceptional doctor, and the precision of his prose—as well as the moral purpose underscoring it—suggests that he could have written a good book on any subject he chose. Part of what makes this book so essential is the fact that it was written under a death sentence following the diagnosis that upended his life, just as he was preparing to end his residency and attract offers at the top of his profession. Kalanithi learned he might have 10 years to live or perhaps five. Should he return to neurosurgery (he could and did), or should he write (he also did)? Should he and his wife have a baby? They did, eight months before he died, which was less than two years after the original diagnosis. “The fact of death is unsettling,” he understates. “Yet there is no other way to live.”
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular clarity.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8129-8840-6
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
PERSPECTIVES
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
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