Cutting for Stone

“The Splitting of Stone” is a love story lasting a lifetime: love, betrayal, and redemption; human weakness and strength of spirit; exile and a long return home. In the missionary hospital of Addis Ababa, in tragic, truly Shakespearean circumstances, two boys are born—two conjoined twins, Marion and Shiva. Born to a beautiful Indian nun by an English surgeon, the boys were orphaned in the first hours of life. The skill and courage of the doctors who separated them right after birth determined their life and fate. Marion and Shiva will devote themselves to medicine, but each will take their own path. They are destined for an astonishing, tragic fate filled with incredible events. A truly happy childhood and dramatic youth, the search for themselves and their roots, love like an obsession, and jealousy corroding the soul. And all of it under the shadow of medicine. No matter what happens in the lives of the heroes of this truly great novel, whatever fate torments them, the main thing for them is always surgery—the work they came into this world for.