In 1951, a young woman from Baltimore died of cancer. Her death changed medical science for ever. Her name was Henrietta Lacks. Rebecca Skloot takes us on an extraordinary journey in search of Henrietta's story. Full of warmth and questing intelligence, astonishing in scope and impossible to put down, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks captures the beauty and drama of scientific discovery, as well as its human consequences. A graceful, deeply felt book.
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks is a fascinating mix of memoir and science, telling the story of how one woman’s cells have saved countless lives. Now an HBO film starring Oprah Winfrey & Rose Byrne. ‘No dead woman has done more for the living . . . A fascinating, harrowing, necessary book.’ – Hilary Mantel, Guardian Her name was Henrietta Lacks, but scientists know her as HeLa. Born a poor black tobacco farmer, her cancer cells – taken without her knowledge – became a multimillion-dollar industry and one of the most important tools in medicine. Yet Henrietta’s family did not learn of her ‘immortality’ until more than twenty years after her death, with devastating consequences . . . Rebecca Skloot’s fascinating account is the story of the life, and afterlife, of one woman who changed the medical world forever. Balancing the beauty and drama of scientific discovery with dark questions about who owns the stuff our bodies are made of, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks is an extraordinary journey in search of the soul and story of a real woman, whose cells live on today in all four corners of the world.
