When Breath Becomes Air is a book about having to die.
It is the poignant and frank true life story of Paul Kalanithi, who after a post-graduate degree in English embarked on a journey to become a neurosurgeon – all in the search of life’s true meaning.
The irony is that death, in the form of lung cancer, would find him at the age of 36 and at the cusp of his career.
Clearly a brilliant mind, Kalanithi traverses literary and medical terrains as he explores his life’s most recent trajectory as patient and practitioner. So much of what he says resonates, illuminates, amuses, astonishes and finely devastates.
A protagonist, who introduces himself as a dying man, but writes only about life and displays such a gift for writing, will leave you spellbound but inevitably heartbroken as you’re reminded that all life is fragile.
There is good reason why this book is a New York Times best-seller.
* When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi is published by Penguin Random House