The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

WINNER OF THE WELLCOME BOOK PRIZE 2010

Her name was Henrietta Lacks, but scientists know her as HeLa. Born a poor black tobacco farmer, her cancer cells - taken without her knowledge - became a multimillion-dollar industry and one of the most important tools in medicine. Yet Henrietta's family did not learn of her 'immortality' until more than twenty years after her death, with devastating consequences . . .

Rebecca Skloot's fascinating account is the story of the life, and afterlife, of one woman who changed the medical world forever. Balancing the beauty and drama of scientific discovery with dark questions about who owns the stuff our bodies are made of, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks is an extraordinary journey in search of the soul and story of a real woman, whose cells live on today in all four corners of the world.

'This is an extraordinary book, a mix of memoir, social history and science. But above all it is a biography of a woman whose importance has long outlived the circumstances of her life.' Sarah Crompton, The Telegraph

Rebecca Skloot revivifies Henrietta, studying her not only as the originator of her cell line but as a woman embedded in history. Her absorbing book is not just about medicine and science but about colour, race, class, superstition and enlightenment, about the painful, transfixing romance of being American. Hilary Mantel, The Guardian