Newborn

A beautiful, revelatory investigation into the inner life of the baby, for readers of Rachel Clarke's The Story of a Heart and Lucy Jones' Matrescence.'An essential and transformative book' Katie Kitamura, author of AuditionA baby's first cry announces a new life. But for some newborns, rushed from the delivery room to the neonatal intensive care unit, their survival hangs in the balance. What does it mean to enter the world before you're ready? And what can we truly know of newborn life-a time none of us can remember, yet all of us have lived? Seeking answers, journalist Clémentine Goldszal spends six months inside the neonatal intensive care unit at Necker Hospital for Sick Children in Paris. There, she witnesses the daily dramas of the ward: babies fighting for breath, doctors and nurses pushing the limits of medicine in an overstretched healthcare system and parents learning to love a child through the walls of an incubator. Tender and deeply humane, Newborn offers a rare glimpse into a world few of us ever see. It is both a portrait of those devoted to caring for the smallest and most vulnerable lives, and a visionary attempt to give voice to the mysterious inner life of the baby. PRAISE FOR NEWBORNS'You'll emerge from this odyssey to the extremes of science and compassion more grateful to be alive' ELLE'A beautifully observed 360-degree exploration' Molly Case, author of How to Treat People'A book that makes us question everything, a book that moves us' Vogue'Ambitious, perceptive and eye-opening' Collatéral'Stuns and impresses' Libération