One Life.

One Life (1970) is the autobiography of Christiaan Neethling Barnard (1922-2001), the South African cardiac surgeon who performed the world's first human-to-human heart transplant on December 3, 1967, at Groote Schuur Hospital in Cape Town, transplanting the heart of accident victim Denise Darvall into fifty-four-year-old patient Louis Washkansky. The narrative traces Barnard's humble origins in the small town of Beaufort West, his rigorous medical training across South Africa and the University of Minnesota, and the relentless ambition that drove him to the operating table at Groote Schuur, presenting with unflinching candor not only the triumphant scientific achievement but also the profound ethical, emotional, and human dimensions of transplanting a living heart from one person to another. Washkansky survived the operation for eighteen days before succumbing to pneumonia brought on by the immunosuppressive drugs that suppressed his immune system, and the worldwide press attention that descended on Cape Town in the operation's aftermath made Barnard an instant global celebrity and opened crucial public discussion of the concept of brain death, paving the way for the subsequent development of transplant surgery around the world. A major publishing success upon its 1970 release, Barnard generously donated the book's royalties to a Cape Town fund supporting research into heart disease and organ transplantation.