Everything is True: A junior doctor's story of life, death and grief in a time of pandemic

CHOSEN AS A BOOK OF 2022 BY THE GUARDIAN AND NEW STATESMAN 'A STAND OUT' SUNDAY TIMES 'STARTLINGLY HONEST AND DEVASTATINGLY GOOD' RACHEL CLARKE 'YOU EMERGE KNOWING HOW LUCKY YOU ARE TO HAVE READ IT' ALI SMITH, NEW STATESMAN 'SEARING' GUARDIAN, 50 hottest reads for summer 'The most powerful and evocative account of working through the pandemic that I have read' ADAM KAY 'A laser guided insight into what’s been happening in hospitals during the pandemic laying bare what we were all clapping for ... Beautifully written, brutally honest' JO BRAND From the frontlines of the NHS, the story of a junior doctor's love, loss and grief through the Covid-19 crisis ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ In early 2020, junior doctor Roopa Farooki lost her sister to cancer. But just weeks later, she found herself plunged into another kind of crisis, fighting on the frontline of the battle taking place in her hospital, and in hospitals across the country. Everything is True is the story of Roopa’s first forty days of the Covid-19 crisis from the frontlines of A&E and the acute medical wards, as struggling through her grief, she battles for her patients’ and colleagues’ survival. Working thirteen-hour shifts, she returns home each evening to write through her exhaustion, chronicling the devastating losses and slowly eroding dehumanisation happening in real time on the ward. At once an unflinching insider’s account of medicine in the time of coronavirus, and the devastating story of a sister’s grief, Everything is True is an exhilarating memoir of holding on to that which makes us human against insurmountable odds. 'An extraordinary writer … Beautiful, heartbreaking, brilliant, furious and oh-so-honest - an amazing read' KATE MOSSE

About the Author :
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 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 A searing account of the first 40 days of the UK’s pandemic lockdown from a first-hand witness. Farooki, a novelist, finished medical school a matter of months before coronavirus emerged – and found herself on the frontlines of an unprecedented medical emergency. Brilliant … vivid and immediate, fragmentary and unalloyed The pandemic up-close and thumpingly personal ... Startlingly honest and devastatingly good 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 A raw, real-time monologue ... Full of gallows humour, resentment and fear 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 A stand out ... Raw and clear-eyed 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 The novelist and doctor shares her story of love, loss and grief through the Covid-19 crisis An extraordinary writer … Beautiful, heartbreaking, brilliant, furious and oh-so-honest - an amazing read 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 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 Beautiful ... Fury and fatigue from the pandemic’s frontlines A brilliantly written, disturbing and brutally honest book