Description

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"This is a personal, urgent, and universal book." —Gloria Steinem

Situated more than one hundred miles off Italy’s southern coast, the rocky island of Lampedusa has hit world headlines in recent years as the first port of call for hundreds of thousands of African and Middle Eastern refugees fleeing civil war and terrorism and hoping to make a new life in Europe. Dr. Pietro Bartolo, who runs the lone medical clinic on the island, has been caring for many of them—both the living and the dead—for a quarter century. Tears of Salt is Dr. Bartolo’s moving account of his life and work set against one of the signal crises of our time. With quiet dignity and an unshakable moral center, he tells unforgettable tales of pain and hope, stories of those who didn’t make it and those who did.

About the Author

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Pietro Bartolo was born in Lampedusa to a family of fishermen. He returned to Lampedusa after getting his medical degree, and has been running the island’s lone clinic since 1991. He was featured in Gianfranco Rosi’s celebrated documentary film Fire at Sea, a finalist for the Academy Award.

Lidia Tilotta is a journalist with RAI Regional News and Mediterraneo.

Praise For…

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Tears of Salt is a tender personal memoir.… It is also a damning indictment of the broader, collective indifference of humankind to both the drowned and the saved.

— Philip Gourevitch

A work not to be missed.… [Bartolo] limns his narrative with great compassion and humanity.
— Marjorie Kehe

Heart-wrenching and relevant.
— Marion Winik

Poignant.
— Uzodinma Iweala

Through Dr. Bartolo we understand that it is impossible to do nothing in the face of such great human need.

Equal parts memoir, celebration of [Lampedusa] and report from the front. Above all, though, it is a plea for compassion.
— Edward Morris

At a time when our broken world seems to be encouraging, and lauding, the worst of humanity, along comes the remarkable Dr. Bartolo to show us what courage, integrity, and compassion look like. His life is a manual of what it means to be human.
— Rabih Alameddine

Tears of Salt…reveals the human side of suffering through the life of one man.

— Adele Annesi

Dr. Bartolo’s spare, poignant, angry account of his life as doctor to the refugees arriving on the shores of Italy is an unusual and important addition to the growing literature of migration. Anyone wanting to understand the disaster of what is happening around us should read this book.
— Caroline Moorehead