Abraham Verghese "Return to Missing"

Title: Return to Missing (orig. *Cutting for Stone*) Author: Abraham Verghese Release date: 2011 Genre: Contemporary fiction Medical topic: surgery Description: Verghese tells the story of Marion Stone, which unfolds across two countries over the course of several decades. In 1954, at a missionary hospital in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, twins Marion and Shiva are born. Their mother, an Indian nun, dies during a dramatic delivery, and their father—a British surgeon—flees from the responsibility weighing on him and leaves for America. The boys are taken in by an Indian couple of doctors: the gynecologist Hema and the internist Ghosh. The twins grow up during turbulent times, amid the fall of Emperor Haile Selassie following the revolution led by the dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam and during the war with Eritrea. However, it is not the political situation but the two brothers’ love for the same woman that causes Marion to leave the country to study medicine in the United States. During this time, the self-taught Shiva becomes a world authority on vaginal fistulas. A series of extraordinary, soap-opera-like events leads to a melodramatic conclusion. "Return to Missing" is, above all, a beautiful story that is hard to put down. Abraham Verghese has an exceptionally light touch with the pen, which he wields with great skill, transporting us in an instant to another continent to experience the brothers’ life dilemmas alongside them. The book’s brilliantly crafted characters undoubtedly deserve special attention. The characters are both authentic and highly original. In *Return to Missing*, medicine plays a very important supporting role. Verghese treats this field in a special, mystical way, and he regards the actions of doctors as filled with miracles and extraordinary phenomena.