| The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks | |
|---|---|
1st edition |
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| Author(s) | Rebecca Skloot |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Publication date | 2010 |
| Media type | Print (Hardback) |
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks (2010) is a non-fiction book by American author Rebecca Skloot. It is about Henrietta Lacks and the immortal cell line, known as HeLa, that came from her cervical cancer cells in 1951. The book is notable for its accessible science writing and dealing with ethical issues of race and class in medical research. It is Skloot's first book.
In May 2010, it was announced that Oprah Winfrey and Alan Ball in conjunction with HBO plan to create a film version.[1]
Contents |
Critical reception was favorable. Lisa Margonelli reviewing in The New York Times Book Review said:
Skloot narrates the science lucidly, tracks the racial politics of medicine thoughtfully and tells the Lacks family’s often painful history with grace. She also confronts the spookiness of the cells themselves, intrepidly crossing into the spiritual plane on which the family has come to understand their mother’s continued presence in the world. Science writing is often just about “the facts.” Skloot’s book, her first, is far deeper, braver and more wonderful.[2]
On November 10, 2010 the book was awarded the Wellcome Trust Book Prize, awarded annually to an outstanding work of fiction or non-fiction on the theme of health and medicine.[3] It also won the Heartland Prize for non-fiction[4], a Salon Book Award, selected as one of the 100 New York Times Notable Books of the Year, and chosen as a Publishers Weekly Top 10 Books of 2010.[5] As of October 19, 2011, the paperback edition had spent 31 weeks on the New York Times Best Sellers list.[6]
The book was initially released in hardcover, published by Crown Books, on February 2, 2010 (ISBN 978-1400052172). On the same date, an audiobook edition was published by Random House Audio, narrated by Casandra Campbell and Bahni Turpin (ISBN 978-0307712509), as well as electronic editions in mobi (Kindle) and Epub formats.