The co-op bookstore for avid readers
Book Cover for: Tears of Salt: A Doctor's Story of the Refugee Crisis, Pietro Bartolo

Tears of Salt: A Doctor's Story of the Refugee Crisis

Pietro Bartolo

Critic Reviews

Great

Based on 6 reviews on

BookMarks logo

Situated more than one hundred miles off Italy's southern coast, the rocky island of Lampedusa has hit world headlines in recent years as the first port of call for hundreds of thousands of African and Middle Eastern refugees fleeing civil war and terrorism and hoping to make a new life in Europe. Dr. Pietro Bartolo, who runs the lone medical clinic on the island, has been caring for many of them--both the living and the dead--for a quarter century. Tears of Salt is Dr. Bartolo's moving account of his life and work set against one of the signal crises of our time. With quiet dignity and an unshakable moral center, he tells unforgettable tales of pain and hope, stories of those who didn't make it and those who did.

Book Details

  • Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
  • Publish Date: Feb 19th, 2019
  • Pages: 208
  • Language: English
  • Edition: undefined - undefined
  • Dimensions: 8.10in - 5.40in - 0.60in - 0.45lb
  • EAN: 9780393356557
  • Categories: Medical (Incl. Patients)Emigration & Immigration

About the Author

Bartolo, Pietro: - Pietro Bartolo was born in Lampedusa to a family of fishermen. He returned to Lampedusa after getting his medical degree, and has been running the island's lone clinic since 1991. He was featured in Gianfranco Rosi's celebrated documentary film Fire at Sea, a finalist for the Academy Award.
Tilotta, Lidia: - Lidia Tilotta is a journalist with RAI Regional News and Mediterraneo.

Critics’ reviews

Praise for this book

Through Dr. Bartolo we understand that it is impossible to do nothing in the face of such great human need.
Heart-wrenching and relevant.--Marion Winik
At a time when our broken world seems to be encouraging, and lauding, the worst of humanity, along comes the remarkable Dr. Bartolo to show us what courage, integrity, and compassion look like. His life is a manual of what it means to be human.--Rabih Alameddine
Dr. Bartolo's spare, poignant, angry account of his life as doctor to the refugees arriving on the shores of Italy is an unusual and important addition to the growing literature of migration. Anyone wanting to understand the disaster of what is happening around us should read this book.--Caroline Moorehead
A work not to be missed.... [Bartolo] limns his narrative with great compassion and humanity.--Marjorie Kehe
Poignant.--Uzodinma Iweala
Equal parts memoir, celebration of [Lampedusa] and report from the front. Above all, though, it is a plea for compassion.--Edward Morris
Tears of Salt is a tender personal memoir.... It is also a damning indictment of the broader, collective indifference of humankind to both the drowned and the saved.--Philip Gourevitch
Tears of Salt...reveals the human side of suffering through the life of one man.--Adele Annesi