Publisher Description
On January 12, 2010, a major earthquake struck near Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Hundreds of thousands of people died, and the greater part of the capital was demolished. Dr. Paul Farmer, U.N. deputy special envoy to Haiti, who had worked in the country for nearly thirty years treating infectious diseases like tuberculosis and AIDS, and former President Bill Clinton, the U.N. special envoy to Haiti, had just begun to work on an extensive development plan to improve living conditions in Haiti. Now their project was transformed into a massive international rescue and relief effort. In his own words, Farmer documents this effort, including the harrowing obstacles and the small triumphs. Despite an outpouring of aid, the challenges were astronomical. U.N. plans were crippled by Haiti’s fragile infrastructure and the death of U.N. staff members who had been based in Port-au-Prince. In chronicling the relief effort, Farmer draws attention to the social issues that made Haiti so vulnerable to this natural disaster. Yet Farmer’s account is not a gloomy catalog of impenetrable problems. As devastating as Haiti’s circumstances are, its population manages to keep going. Farmer shows how, even in the barest camps, Haitians organize themselves, creating small businesses such as beauty parlors. His narrative is interwoven with stories from Haitians themselves and from doctors and others working on the ground. Ultimately this is a story of human endurance and humility in difficult circumstances and seemingly overwhelming odds.
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"A tragic accounting of a nation left in ruin by previous occupations, oppressive rule, willful neglect, outside interference, and a government apart from its people since it origin. Perhaps the most disturbing was the lack of accountability by NGO's (Non-Government Organizations) mismanaging, or having absconded millions of dollars provided by donations from all over the world for reconstruction after the earthquake. Told mostly by those most affected by the experience. Highly Recommended!"
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Russ (4 out of 5 stars)
About Paul Farmer
Dr. Paul Farmer (1950—2022), physician and anthropologist, was chief strategist and cofounder of Partners in Health, an international nonprofit organization that provides direct health care services to people living in poverty. He was the recipient of numerous honors, including the Margaret Mead Award from the American Anthropological Association, the American Medical Association’s Outstanding International Physician Award, and many others. He wrote extensively on health, human rights, and the consequences of social inequality.
About the Narrators
Meryl Streep, considered by many movie reviewers to be the greatest living film actress, has been nominated for an Academy Award an astonishing sixteen times and has won it three times. She has also garnered two Emmy Awards, seven Golden Globes, and six Drama Desk Awards. In 2004, she was awarded the American Film Institute’s Lifetime Achievement Award. She is also an Audie Award and Grammy Award–winning narrator.
Edoardo Ballerini, an American actor, director, film producer, and multiaward–winning narrator. He has won several Audie Awards for best narration, including for 2019’s Best Male Narrator of the Year. He was named by Booklist as winner of their 2023 Voice of Choice Award, and was named a Golden Voice by AudioFile magazine in 2019. He has narrated over two hundred audiobooks, from classics to modern masters, from bestsellers to the inspirational, from Nobel and Pulitzer Prize winners to spine-tingling series, and much more. In television and film, he is best known for his roles in A Murder at the End of the World, The Sopranos, 24, I Shot Andy Warhol, Dinner Rush, and Romeo Must Die. He is also trained in theater and continues to do much work on stage.
James Langton, an Earphones Award–winning narrator, trained as an actor at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama and later as a musician at the Guildhall School in London. He has worked in radio, film, and television, also appearing in theater in England and on Broadway. He is also a professional musician who led the internationally renowned Pasadena Roof Orchestra from 1996 to 2002.
Edwidge Danticat is the author of numerous books, including Brother,
I’m Dying, a National Book Critics Circle Award and National Book Award
finalist; Breath, Eyes, Memory, an Oprah Book Club selection; Krik?
Krak!, a National Book Award finalist; The Farming of Bones, an
American Book Award winner; and The Dew Breaker, a PEN/Faulkner Award
finalist and winner of the inaugural Story Prize. The recipient of a MacArthur
Fellowship, she has been published in the New Yorker, the New York
Times, and elsewhere. She lives in Miami.