An Imperfect Offering : Dispatches from the Medical Frontline

In 1988 a young medical student called James Orbinski embarked on a research trip to Rwanda, confronting pain and suffering on a barely conceivable scale. Much of it, he could see, was preventable; much of it occasioned by political and economic corruption. The experience would change his life.

Subsequently, as a member of Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) Orbinski tended to victims of war, famine and epidemic disease the world over, returning eventually to Rwanda just as the nation was beginning its descent into the hell of massacre and genocide. Staggered by the indescribable cruelty, he struggled to regain his footing—as a doctor, a humanitarian and a man.

In An Imperfect Offering James Orbinski asserts with unfailing clarity the dignity and humanity of those for whom political systems have most brutally failed. He takes us into some of the darkest hours of human history, and finds there nearly unimaginable acts of courage, and optimism. He shows too that voice, action and engaged citizenship are essential for a world that dares to hope.

Praise for An Imperfect Offering:

'With vivid personal anecdote, Orbinski chronicles the struggle around humanitarian intervention in one hotspot after another across the planet. In a narrative of grace and power, he displays the intense components of his remarkable life: integrity, compassion and principle. He is undaunted in the face of the worst the world has to offer. He is determined to salve the wounds of humankind. He is a truly committed man, mind and soul throbbing with incandescent decency.'

Stephen Lewis, former UN Special Envoy on AIDS in Africa

'James Orbinski has lived for years in the middle of the worst that humans can be, and somehow emerged with both his compassion and his desire to understand us intact. He is a marvelous storyteller, and the stories he has to tell are some of the most powerful I have ever read.'

Stephanie Nolen, author of "28: Stories of AIDS in Africa"