In this expanded edition of a widely praised book, now available for the first time in North America, the renowned journalist Patrick Cockburn looks at his experience of contracting polio as a child in the context of a new pandemic, that of COVID-19. The parallels between what happened 65 years ago and today's crisis are both striking and salutary.

Cockburn was just six when he woke up one day in the summer of 1956 with a headache and a sore throat. His parents, Claud and Patricia, had recently returned to Ireland, to their house in East Cork, careless of the fact that polio had broken out in Cork City. Patrick caught the disease and was taken to the fever hospital. The virus attacks the nerves of the brain and the spinal cord, leading to paralysis of the muscles. Patrick could no longer walk.

The Broken Boy is at once a memoir of Patrick Cockburn's own experience of polio, a portrait of his parents, both prominent radicals, and the story of the Cork epidemic, the last great polio epidemic in the world.

Reviews likely: The Independent, The i, The Guardian, The Times of London, The Sunday Times, The Irish Times, Financial Times, New Statesman, The Nation, CounterPunch, Tortoise, Peace News Interviews likely: The Independent, CounterPunch, The New Left Review Excerpts likely: The Independent, The Irish Times, The London Review of Books, Tom Dispatch Book launch in London

About the Author
Patrick Cockburn is currently Middle East correspondent for the Independent and worked previously for the Financial Times. He has written four books on Iraq's recent history-The Rise of Islamic State, Muqtada al-Sadr and the Fall of Iraq, The Occupation, and Saddam Hussein: An American Obsession (with Andrew Cockburn)-as well as a memoir, The Broken Boy and, with his son, a book on schizophrenia, Henry's Demons, which was shortlisted for a Costa Award. He won the Martha Gellhorn Prize in 2005, the James Cameron Prize in 2006, the Orwell Prize for Journalism in 2009, the Foreign Commentator of the Year in 2013, and the Foreign Affairs Journalist of the Year in 2014.

Reviews

"Written with affection and insight." - Maeve Binchy

"Charming, interesting and moving by turn." - Sunday Telegraph

"Engrossing . . . an often perceptive genre-defying gem . . . engaging and entertaining." - Scotland on Sunday

"This is wonderful writing . . . Brilliant . . . Cockburn has pulled off something remarkable." - Observer

"The best journalist's autobiography to appear for years . . . This is a story of endurance and a hugely adventurous mind, elegantly told." - Evening Standard

"Sad and entertaining, and altogether evocative of a vanished Ireland."- Sunday Times

Book Information
ISBN 9781682192849
Author Patrick Cockburn
Format Paperback
Page Count 350
Imprint OR Books
Publisher OR Books