The Stone Cut

“Cutting Stone” is a lifelong love story, a tale of betrayal and redemption, of human weakness and strength of spirit, of exile and a long return home. In a missionary hospital in Addis Ababa, under tragic, truly Shakespearean circumstances, two boys, twin brothers conjoined at the head, Marion and Shiva, are born. Born to a beautiful Indian nun, the boys become orphans barely moments after entering the world. The skill and courage of the doctors who separated them immediately after birth determined their fate. Marion and Shiva will connect their futures to medicine, but each will go his own way. They are destined for an astonishing, tragic life filled with incredible events. An absolutely happy childhood and a dramatic youth, searching for themselves and their roots, searching for their father, betrayal, and a passionate desire to atone for guilt, a love that feels like a possession, and jealousy that gnaws at the soul. And all of this under the shadow of medicine, which forms the essence of each one's life. Whatever befalls the heroes of this truly great novel, whatever torment they experience, surgery remains paramount for them – the calling for which they came into this world.

Abraham Verghese is an outstanding doctor, a professor at Stanford University, who, like his characters, has gone through all stages of becoming a physician, sometimes in very difficult conditions. His novel “Cutting Stone,” first published a decade and a half ago, is now rightly considered a classic. Its extraordinary poignancy and authenticity, profound understanding of the profession, and magnificent literary style allow Verghese's book to be regarded as one of the most significant medical novels of the last century.