Cutting For Stone: A Novel

"The ambition is laudable, but too often accounts of operations - a bowel obstruction here, a vasectomy there - overwhelm the narrative. Characterization suffers."  -  Kirkus Reviews

Marion & Shiva Stone are twin brothers born of a secret union between a beautiful Indian nun & a brash British surgeon. Orphaned by their mother’s death & their father’s disappearance, bound together by a preternatural connection & a shared fascination with medicine, the twins come of age as Ethiopia hovers on the brink of revolution. 

Moving from Addis Ababa to New York City & back again, Cutting For Stone is an unforgettable story of love & betrayal, medicine & ordinary miracles - & two brothers whose fates are forever intertwined. 

"Masterful... Verghese’s gripping narrative moves over decades & generations from India to Ethiopia to an inner-city hospital in New York, describing the cultural & spiritual pull of these places... Even with its many stories & layers, Cutting for Stone remains clear & concise."  -  Meghan Ward, San Francisco Chronicle

This sweeping, emotionally riveting novel that "shows how history & landscape & accidents of birth conspire to create the story of a single life" (LA Times).

Abraham Verghese is Professor & Vice Chair for the Theory & Practice of Medicine at the Stanford University School of Medicine. The founding director of the Center for Medical Humanities & Ethics at the U. of Texas Health Science Center, San Antonio, he is the author of My Own Country, a 1994 National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist & a Time Best Book of the Year...