Torch bearers

Kidder (right) first met Farmer in 1994, when Kidder was in Haiti to report on American soldiers working to reinstate Jean-Bertrand Aristide’s government. They didn’t meet again until 1999, when Kidder wrote “The Good Doctor,” a profile of Farmer that was published in The New Yorker.

In Mountains Beyond Mountains, Kidder follows Farmer from the United States to Haiti, Peru, Cuba, and Russia. Over the years, Kidder spent thousands of hours with Farmer, his professional associates, and his family. During an 11-hour hike over the Haitian mountains to visit two of Farmer’s patients, Kidder felt pain in his chest and himself became one of Farmer’s patients.

Called a “master of the non-fiction narrative” by the Baltimore Sun, Kidder won the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award for The Soul of a New Machine (1981), and is also the author of House (1985), Among Schoolchildren (1989), Old Friends (1993), and Home Town (1999).