Author Biography

Roopa Farooki is a writer and junior doctor for the NHS. She is the author of six literary novels that have been translated into over a dozen languages, and a series of middle-grade children's books for Oxford University Press. Her writing has been awarded the John C. Laurence Prize and an Arts Council Award, and listed three times for the Women's Prize. She is also a lecturer on the Masters in Creative Writing at the University of Oxford, and the Ambassador for family for Relate, the counselling charity. In 2020 she was awarded the Junior Doctor Leadership Prize from her NHS Trust, for her work during the Covid pandemic.@RoopaFarooki

Review

The most powerful and evocative account of working through the pandemic that I have read -- ADAM KAY
This is such a tough good read about a time of grief, tragedy, loss and catastrophic UK government mismanagement – not over yet, she makes clear – that after you've read it, after you've withstood its clear-eyed anger, you emerge focussed on what must change and knowing how lucky you are to have read it -- ALI SMITH * NEW STATESMAN *
Brilliant … vivid and immediate, fragmentary and unalloyed * OBSERVER *
A laser guided insight into what's been happening in hospitals during the pandemic laying bare what we were all clapping for ... A devastating fusion of private and public grief. Beautifully written, brutally honest -- JO BRAND
The pandemic up-close and thumpingly personal ... Startlingly honest and devastatingly good -- RACHEL CLARKE * GUARDIAN *
Even after all we've heard and read about what staff in the NHS have faced during the pandemic, her accounts still have the power to shock * i news *
A raw, real-time monologue ... Full of gallows humour, resentment and fear * NEW STATESMAN *
Long may Dr Farooki write ... An insightful and entertaining guide, with an attractive blend of wit, self-awareness and moral seriousness ... A genuine insight on love, grief and what truly matters * IRISH TIMES *
A stand out ... Raw and clear-eyed * SUNDAY TIMES *
The novelist and doctor shares her story of love, loss and grief through the Covid-19 crisis * GUARDIAN, BOOKS OF THE YEAR 2022 *
An extraordinary writer … Beautiful, heartbreaking, brilliant, furious and oh-so-honest - an amazing read -- KATE MOSSE
An eloquent testimonial of grief and fury through the first forty days of the Covid crisis – Farooki's urgent, fragmentary diary of life on the wards conveys the fear, confusion and uncertainty of those first weeks with singular brilliance. I read it in one sitting, hoping it will find its way onto the shelves of those politicians who seem reluctant to learn from their mistakes, and who need to know the truth about the human consequences of health policy decisions -- GAVIN FRANCIS
A powerful, honest, angry, vivid book ... It will undoubtedly have a big impact ... and finds absolutely the right route through the personal, the political, the angry, the sad, the mundane -- ALICE JOLLY
A brilliantly written, disturbing and brutally honest book * TABLET *

Promotional

From the frontlines of the NHS, the story of a junior doctor's love, loss and grief through the Covid-19 crisis

Review Quote

The pandemic up-close and thumpingly personal ... Startlingly honest and devastatingly good

Promotional "Headline"

From the frontlines of the NHS, the story of a junior doctor's love, loss and grief through the Covid-19 crisis

Feature

A junior doctor on the NHS, Farooki was awarded the NHS Junior Doctor Leadership Prize in 2020. As a writer, her work has been nominated for the Women's Prize three times, and awarded a John Laurence Prize and an Arts Council Award

Details