Good evening ladies and gentlemen and welcome to our annual international literary awards. I am truly honored to be standing before you tonight to award this year’s DBCP International Prize to Lucy Kalanithi on behalf of her late husband, Paul Kalanithi for his autobiographical, worldwide bestseller, When Breath Becomes Air. Before I ask Lucy to come up and receive this award, I would like to give you a summary of Paul Kalanithi’s life and his book. Paul Kalanithi’s clever, poignant, When Breath becomes Air, is a moving account of life, what it means and how every moment counts. This memoir is this year’s clear winner for the DBCP International Prize.
When Breath Becomes Air, spent twelve weeks as number one on the New York Times Bestsellers …show more content…
He held degrees in English literature, human biology, and history and philosophy of science and medicine from Stanford and Cambridge universities before graduating from Yale School of medicine. He also received the American Academy of Neurological Surgery’s highest award for research. His reflections have been published in the New York Times, the Washington Post and the Paris Review Daily. Kalanithi died in March 2015, aged 37. He is survived by his wife Lucy, and their daughter Elizabeth Acadia.
Paul Kalanithi was born in Bronxville, New York on the 1st of April 1977. When he was 10, he and his family (his parents and two brothers) moved to Kingman, Arizona. At the time the public schools in Kingman were the worst in the country and his mother worried that her sons weren’t receiving a proper education and thought it essential that Paul and his two brothers, take AP classes and read the recommended books for the SATs. In doing so, Paul found his passion and love for literature.
Tragically during Paul’s final year of residency as a neurosurgeon, he was diagnosed with Stage 4, metastatic lung cancer. Unable to cope with the demands of a fourth-year resident as the fatigue and physical toll was too much on Paul’s ravaged body, he began to write his moving memoir, When Breath Becomes
When Breath Becomes Air, spent twelve weeks as number one on the New York Times Bestsellers …show more content…
He held degrees in English literature, human biology, and history and philosophy of science and medicine from Stanford and Cambridge universities before graduating from Yale School of medicine. He also received the American Academy of Neurological Surgery’s highest award for research. His reflections have been published in the New York Times, the Washington Post and the Paris Review Daily. Kalanithi died in March 2015, aged 37. He is survived by his wife Lucy, and their daughter Elizabeth Acadia.
Paul Kalanithi was born in Bronxville, New York on the 1st of April 1977. When he was 10, he and his family (his parents and two brothers) moved to Kingman, Arizona. At the time the public schools in Kingman were the worst in the country and his mother worried that her sons weren’t receiving a proper education and thought it essential that Paul and his two brothers, take AP classes and read the recommended books for the SATs. In doing so, Paul found his passion and love for literature.
Tragically during Paul’s final year of residency as a neurosurgeon, he was diagnosed with Stage 4, metastatic lung cancer. Unable to cope with the demands of a fourth-year resident as the fatigue and physical toll was too much on Paul’s ravaged body, he began to write his moving memoir, When Breath Becomes