Librería Samer Atenea
Librería Aciertas (Toledo)
Kálamo Books
Librería Perelló (Valencia)
Librería Elías (Asturias)
Donde los libros
Librería Kolima (Madrid)
Librería Proteo (Málaga)
DescriptionThe miracles and tragedies of life, the compassion and cruelties of humanityare nowhere more visible than in the field of medicine. It is these that KaveryNambisan-doctor and writer of immense sensitivity-explores in this memoir,drawing upon her work as a surgeon over four decades in rural and small-town India.Through her patients’ stories, she depicts the highs and lows of medical practice:Sudha, in Mokama, Bihar, left immobilized waist-down after being set on fire by herin-laws, but determined to walk; construction workers in Lonavala, Maharashtra,who preferred the quick-fix of the ’drip’, so that they wouldn’t miss their daily wage;four-year-old Pavana in the Anamallais, mauled by a leopard, who had to be drivenover 40 kilometres of gutted roads to the nearest hospital. And in contrast, the friendof a Tamil Nadu chief minister who could summon a doctor repeatedly, at will, toattend to her stubbed toe. Settled in Kodagu, Karnataka, after years of practice inhospitals, Kavery now works as a GP, and she writes about treating snake bites, skindiseases, tuberculosis, epileptic seizures and, lately, Covid-19; even as she helps someof her patients hide their meagre savings from alcoholic husbands.Throughout, Kavery also examines the evolution of medical practice and the stateof India’s public health; and weaves in episodes from her personal life: learning fromheroes and rogues, coming into her own as a surgeon, and nursing her husband, thepoet Vijay Nambisan, who was claimed by cancer.Engaging, incisive and deeply felt, A Luxury Called Health shows, as few books haveever done, ’the sincerity and the deception, the valour and the cowardice beneath thewhite coat’. 3
