Fortunate Man - The Story of a Country Doctor

In 1966 John Berger spent three months in the Forest of Dean shadowing an English country GP, John Sassall. Sassall is a fortunate man - his work occupies and fulfils him, he lives amongst the patients he treats, the line between his life and his work is happily blurred. In A Fortunate Man , Berger's text and the photography of Jean Mohr reveal with extraordinary intensity the life of a remarkable man. It is a portrait of one selfless individual and the rural community for which he became the hub. Drawing on psychology, biography and medicine A Fortunate Man is a portrait of sacrifice. It is also a profound exploration of what it means to be a doctor, to serve a community and to heal. With a new introduction by writer and GP, Gavin Francis.

About the author

John Berger was born in London in 1926. His seminal Ways of Seeing was one of the most influential books on art in the twentieth century. His many books, innovative in form and far-reaching in their historical and political insight, include To the Wedding, King and the Booker Prize-winning novel, G. He died, aged ninety, in January 2017.Gavin Francis is an award-winning writer and GP. He is the author of four books of non-fiction, including Adventures in Human Being, which was a Sunday Times bestseller and won the Saltire Scottish Non-Fiction Book of the Year Award, and Empire Antarctica, which won Scottish Book of the Year in the SMIT Awards and was shortlisted for both the Ondaatje and Costa Prizes. He has written for the Guardian, The Times, the New York Review of Books and the London Review of Books. His work is published in twenty languages. He lives in Edinburgh, Scotland.

@gavinfranc | gavinfrancis.com

Product details

• Authors: John Berger, Jean Mohr
• Assisted by: Jean Mohr (Photographs), Mohr Jean (Photographs), Gavin Francis (Introduction)
• Publisher: Canongate Books
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback
• Released: 04.02.2016
• EAN: 9781782115038
• ISBN: 978-1-78211-503-8
• No. of pages: 176
• Dimensions: 128 mm x 198 mm x 13 mm
• Series: The Canons; The canons
• Subjects: Fiction > Narrative literature > Letters, diaries; Natural sciences, medicine, IT, technology > Medicine > General; Non-fiction book > Philosophy, religion > Biographies, autobiographies; Arzt, Ärztin; Berichte, Erinnerungen, Rural communities, United Kingdom, Great Britain, Biography: science, technology & medicine, Biography: science, technology and medicine, Doctor / patient relationship