The Story of a Heart

WINNER OF THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION 2025 SHORTLISTED FOR THE BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION 2024 BOOK OF THE YEAR IN THE SPECTATOR, NEW STATESMAN, NEW SCIENTIST, AND PROSPECT 'What a book . . . The perfect book' Chris Evans on Virgin Radio 'Profoundly moving and at the same time wildly inspiring' Rob Delaney 'Rachel Clarke's finest book yet' Financial Times 'The best narrative non-fiction I've read in years. Rachel Clarke has written a profound piece of investigative journalism and wrapped it up in poetry' Christie Watson 'This is THE MOST BEAUTIFUL and riveting book: written with such humanity, empathy and knowledge, such tact and drama and eloquence. Vital reading, lifelong revelation' Laura Cumming This is the unforgettable story of how one family's grief transformed into a lifesaving gift. With tremendous compassion and clarity, Dr Rachel Clarke relates the urgent journey of a young girl's heart and explores a history of remarkable medical innovations , stretching back over a century and involving the knowledge and dedication not just of surgeons but of countless physicians, immunologists, nurses and scientists. FROM THE AUTHOR OF THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER DEAR LIFE AND BREATHTAKING, A MAJOR TV DRAMA

Dr Rachel Clarke is an NHS palliative care doctor and the author of four Sunday Times bestselling non-fiction books. The most recent of these, The Story of a Heart (2024), won the Women's Prize for Non-Fiction. Breathtaking (2021), which reveals how she and her colleagues confronted the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, was adapted into an acclaimed television series, broadcast on ITV in 2024. Dear Life (2020), depicting her work in an NHS hospice, was shortlisted for the 2020 Costa Biography Award and long-listed for the 2020 Baillie Gifford Prize. Before going to medical school, Rachel was a broadcast journalist. She produced and directed current affairs documentaries focusing on subjects such as Al Qaeda, the Iraq War and the civil war in the Democratic Republic of Congo. She continues to write regularly for the Guardian, Sunday Times, New Statesman and Lancet among others, and appears regularly on television and radio. Inspired by a visit to Ukraine during the conflict in late 2022, Rachel founded a UK-registered charity, Hospice Ukraine, which supports the work of local palliative care teams in Ukraine.