★2020年法蘭克福書展重點非文學

國際知名的醫生暨人類學家保羅．法默（Paul Farmer）在本書中提供有關2014年西非令人震驚、快速發展的伊波拉（Ebola）疫情及其影響的第一手實情描述。在生動活潑的散文中，他講述了伊波拉受害者的悲慘故事，同時說明了為什麼醫療反應緩慢而不足。

In 2014, Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Guinea suffered the worst epidemic of Ebola in history. The brutal virus spread rapidly through a clinical desert where basic health-care facilities were few and far between. Causing severe loss of life and economic disruption, the Ebola crisis was a major tragedy of modern medicine. But why did it happen, and what can we learn from it?

Paul Farmer, the internationally renowned doctor and anthropologist, experienced the Ebola outbreak firsthand―Partners in Health, the organization he founded, was among the international responders. In Fevers, Feuds, and Diamonds, he offers the first substantive account of this frightening, fast-moving episode and its implications. In vibrant prose, Farmer tells the harrowing stories of Ebola victims while showing why the medical response was slow and insufficient. Rebutting misleading claims about the origins of Ebola and why it spread so rapidly, he traces West Africa’s chronic health failures back to centuries of exploitation and injustice. Under formal colonial rule, disease containment was a priority but care was not – and the region’s health care woes worsened, with devastating consequences that Farmer traces up to the present.

This thorough and hopeful narrative is a definitive work of reportage, history, and advocacy, and a crucial intervention in public-health discussions around the world.

Paul Farmer is the Kolokotrones University Professor and Chair of Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard University as well as chief of the Division of Global Health Equity at Boston's Brigham and Women's Hospital, and a founding director of Partners In Health. Among his numerous awards and honors is the Public Welfare Medal from the National Academy of Sciences.