Azra Raza - The First Cell: And the Human Costs of Pursuing Cancer to the Last

Showing that compassion is just as important for cancer patients as the drugs administered to them, Razas deeply personal work brings understanding and empathy to the fore in a way that a purely scientific explication never could.

Publishers Weekly (Starred)

With elegant literary references and a compassion that deeply personalizes her interactions with patients and families, she engages readers in a commitment to finding a better way. Intelligence, empathy, and optimism inform the argument for new research on cancer that could obviate the suffering prevalent today.

Kirkus (Starred)

An affecting, fascinating, timely, and uncompromisingly honest look at where we stand in treating the most fearsome disease in most peoples worry list.

Steven Pinker, Johnstone Professor of Psychology at Harvard University and author of Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress

With wisdom distilled from more than three decades of clinical practice, the sensibilities of a poet, and a deep compassion for her fellow humans, Azra Raza provides a compelling argument that a key way forward in improving patient outcomes is early diagnosis and treatment, before cancer has become much too complex for any therapy to overcome.

David Steensma, attending physician at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and associate professor at Harvard Medical School

Unraveling myth and metaphor surrounding the disease with unrelenting acuity and sharing the pathos of lives that have been slashed of years and months and shorn of hope and promise by cancer, Dr. Raza reveals a world that has of yet been inaccessible to those who mourn humanitys lack of progress against the disease while being simultaneously baffled by it. Here is a masterful rendition of how an emphasis on curing cancer, instead of working to detect its first venomous breath, has exacted a terrible price in human lives, including that of her very own husband, Harvey. The First Cell is an intertwining of literature and life, science and cutting-edge cancer research, that demands a radical transformation in the way we humans understand the most tragic killer of our time. Through her poignant story-telling and the strength of a scientific vision built on decades of hard-wrought lessons gleaned from her work as a clinician and research scholar, Dr. Raza presents an arresting account that challenges our core understanding of cancer and cure.

Rafia Zakaria, author of The Upstairs Wife and Veil

As a cancer survivor, I can testify that Dr. Razas call to action for more research on early detection is vitally important. In a world driven by profit, this book is by a doctor who thinks about the patient first.

Ruchira Gupta, journalist and activist

To Sheherzad

Khurshid-e-Jahan Taab Ki Zau Tere Sharar Mein

Abad Hai Ek Taza Jahan Tere Hunar Mein

Allama Iqbal

The spark in you is a radiant sun

A new world lives in your talent

And to my siblings

Amera, Atiya, Tasnim, Javed, Sughra, and Abbas

In honor of what the G7 share: the deep love of each other and of Syed Ali Raza and Begum Zaheer Fatima, and memories of the best of times at Gulistan e Razathe secure, warm, and fun home in our beloved Karachi

Kaavish ka dil karay hay taqaaza kay hay hunoz Nakhun pe qarz uss girah e neem baaz ka

G HALIB

The heart demands greater exertion into inquiry, for yet Our fingernails owe a debt to the half-undone knots

The work of the eyes is done. Go now and do the heart-work on the images imprisoned within you.

R AINER M ARIA R ILKE