About Mountains Beyond Mountains

At the center of Mountains Beyond Mountains stands Paul Farmer. Doctor, Harvard professor, renowned infectious-disease specialist, anthropologist, the recipient of a MacArthur "genius" grant, world-class Robin Hood, Farmer was brought up in a bus and on a boat, and in medical school found his life's calling: to diagnose and cure infectious diseases and to bring the lifesaving tools of modern medicine to those who need them most. This magnificent book shows how radical change can be fostered in situations that seem insurmountable, and it also shows how a meaningful life can be created, as Farmer--brilliant, charismatic, charming, both a leader in international health and a doctor who finds time to make house calls in Boston and the mountains of Haiti--blasts through convention to get results.

Mountains Beyond Mountains takes us from Harvard to Haiti, Peru, Cuba, and Russia as Farmer changes minds and practices through his dedication to the philosophy that "the only real nation is humanity" - a philosophy that is embodied in the small public charity he founded, Partners In Health. He enlists the help of the Gates Foundation, George Soros, the U.N.'s World Health Organization, and others in his quest to cure the world. At the heart of this book is the example of a life based on hope, and on an understanding of the truth of the Haitian proverb "Beyond mountains there are mountains": as you solve one problem, another problem presents itself, and so you go on and try to solve that one too.

This powerful and inspiring book shows how one person can make a difference, as Kidder tells the true story of a gifted man who is in love with the world and has set out to do all he can to cure it.
- From the Random House web site

About Dr. Paul Farmer

"Farmer would say of his childhood, 'The way I tell myself the story is a little too neat. I'd like to be able to say that when I was young I lived in a trailer park, picked fruit with Haitians, got interested in migrant farm workers, and went to Latin America. All true, but not the truth. We're asked to have tidy biographies that are coherent. Everyone does that. But the fact is, a perfectly discrepant version has the same ending.'"
- Mountains Beyond Mountains

Born in 1959, Dr. Paul Farmer spent much of his childhood living on a bus and aboard a boat. Intensely curious and an academic achiever, Farmer graduated summa cum laude from Duke University in 1982 with a bachelor's degree in anthropology. Farmer made his first trip to Haiti in 1983. In 1990, he received MD and PhD degrees in medical anthropology from Harvard.

Founding director of Partners in Health, an international health care organization helping those who are sick and living in poverty, Farmer's work draws primarily on active clinical practice and focuses on diseases that disproportionately afflict the poor. Today, Partners in Health partner projects may be found in Haiti, Guatemala, Mexico, Peru, Russia, Rwanda, and the US.

Farmer has received multiple humanitarian and medical awards. His work has also been recognized by a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation "genius award." Farmer has written extensively about health and human rights, and about the role of social inequalities in the distribution and outcome of infectious diseases. He is the author of Pathologies of Power, Infections and Inequalities, The Uses of Haiti, and AIDS and Accusation. In addition, he is co-editor of Women, Poverty, and AIDS and of The Global Impact of Drug-Resistant Tuberculosis.

About Tracy Kidder

"I usually write about ordinary people and ordinary things, but Paul Farmer is the least ordinary person I've ever met. He's the leader of a small group of people who hope to cure a sick world, and I hope my book can help in some small way."
- Tracy Kidder

Tracy Kidder graduated from Harvard, studied at the University of Iowa, and served as an army officer in Vietnam. He has won the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, the Robert F. Kennedy Award, and many other literary prizes. He has been described by the Baltimore Sun as the "master of the non-fiction narrative." The author of Home Town, Old Friends, Among Schoolchildren, House, and The Soul of a New Machine, Kidder lives in Massachusetts and Maine.