Mountains Beyond Mountains
By Tracy Kidder
The book selected for 2005 is Tracy Kidder’s Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, A Man Who Would Cure the World (Random House, 2003). The book is available from resellers nationwide as well as in paperback at the La Roche College Book Store. For telephone orders, call 412-536-1140.
Mountains
Beyond Mountains was written by Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award winning
journalist Tracy Kidder. This is a fascinating and entertaining non-fiction
account of the remarkable life and work of a man who believes “the only
true nation is humanity.” One reviewer calls the book a “true-to-life
fairy tale,” that will “restore your faith in the ability of one
person to make a difference in these increasingly maddening, dispiriting times.”
(Laura Claridge, Boston Sunday Globe). In awe of Farmer’s unstoppable
commitment to bringing the lifesaving tools of modern medicine to the poorest
of the poor, author Tracy Kidder muses, “I imagine that many people would
like to construct a life like Farmer’s, to wake up knowing what they ought
to do and feeling that they were doing it.” (p. 213).
The
title, Mountains Beyond Mountains, was inspired by a Haitian proverb that reads,
“Deye mon gen mon” (“Beyond mountains there are mountains”).
These five words communicate the impact of poverty, hunger and disease on the
poor of Haiti. The proverb recognizes the constant struggle of the poor as they
face and attempt to overcome one life-threatening challenge (one mountain) after
another. Equipped with so little with which to fight those challenges, life
becomes one long struggle just to stay alive.
For more, read the National Public Radio (NPR) article The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer and hear Tracy Kidder read an excerpt from his book. You may also wish to visit MountainsBeyondMountains.org.
Books by Paul Farmer
- Infections and Inequalities: The Modern Plagues. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999.
- Pathologies of Power: Health, Human Rights, and the New War on the Poor.
Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003.
(This book is available in the Wright Library circulating general collection). - The Uses of Haiti. 2nd. Ed. Monroe, ME: Common Courage Press, 2003.
- AIDS and Accusation: Haiti and the Geography of Blame. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992.
- Women, Poverty and AIDS: Sex, Drugs, and Structural Violence. Edited
by Paul Farmer, Margaret Connors, and Janie Simmons. Monroe, ME: Common Courage
Press, 1996.
