Réparer les vivants

The Heart is a 2014 realistic and medical fiction novel by the French author Maylis de Kerangal. It chronicles the events immediately following the death of 19-year-old Simon Limbres in a car accident. In particular, The Heart focuses on the transplantation of Simon's heart and how it affects those involved in the process, including Simon's parents, the physicians, the nurses, the organ transplant coordinators, the recipient, and the recipient's family, over the course of twenty-four hours. The novel was first published in France as Réparer les vivants in 2014 by Éditions Verticales, and was then published in the United States in 2016 by Farrar, Straus, and Giroux as The Heart, and in the UK as Mend the Living, also in 2016, by MacLehose Press. The Heart received critical acclaim from both Francophone and Anglophone reviewers for its lyrical prose, emotional development, and humanism. It has been performed as a theater play in France since 2015. A film adaptation, Heal the Living, was released in 2016.