A beautiful, revelatory investigation into the inner life of the baby, for readers of Rachel Clarke's The Story of a Heart and Lucy Jones' Matrescence.

'An essential and transformative book' Katie Kitamura, author of Audition

A baby's first cry announces a new life. But for some newborns, rushed from the delivery room to the neonatal intensive care unit, their survival hangs in the balance.

What does it mean to enter the world before you're ready? And what can we truly know of newborn life-a time none of us can remember, yet all of us have lived?

Seeking answers, journalist Clémentine Goldszal spends six months inside the neonatal intensive care unit at Necker Hospital for Sick Children in Paris. There, she witnesses the daily dramas of the ward: babies fighting for breath, doctors and nurses pushing the limits of medicine in an overstretched healthcare system and parents learning to love a child through the walls of an incubator.

Tender and deeply humane, Newborn offers a rare glimpse into a world few of us ever see. It is both a portrait of those devoted to caring for the smallest and most vulnerable lives, and a visionary attempt to give voice to the mysterious inner life of the baby.

PRAISE FOR NEWBORNS

'You'll emerge from this odyssey to the extremes of science and compassion more grateful to be alive' ELLE

'A beautifully observed 360-degree exploration' Molly Case, author of How to Treat People

'A book that makes us question everything, a book that moves us' Vogue

'Ambitious, perceptive and eye-opening' Collatéral

"A luminous narrative that poses questions about newborns and about the mysteries of birth. . . You've never read anything like it. . . You'll emerge from this odyssey to the extremes of science and compassion more grateful to be alive" - ELLE

"A book that makes us question everything, a book that moves us" - Vogue

"Ambitious, perceptive and eye-opening, if sometimes harrowing to read. . . The author manages to simultaneously capture the difficulties faced by carers, babies and families, without falling into pathos or sentimentalism. . . Goldszal gives voice to the premature newborn and tries to bridge the gap that surrounds its fragile existence" - Collatéral

"A remarkable account of the vulnerability of existence and a historical-scientific investigation into the status of babies" - Le Nouvel Obs

"You'd swear you could hear the voice of these beings as fragile as paper" - Le Temps

"Stunning. The most incredible book I've ever read on the subject of the hospital" - France 2

"With precision, intelligence and honesty, drawing by turns on philosophy, cinema, religion and psychoanalysis, Clémentine Goldszal attempts to illuminate the mystery of what Freud called "the first experience of anxiety" and offers some thoughts both sensible and sensitive on the "first cries" of these heroic newborns" - Le Point

"What is existence? This question runs through every part of Clémentine Goldszal's book" - Le Monde

"A subtle and original reflection" - Lire

"Goldszal's book stuns and impresses - the author's reference points and analysis will change everything you think you know" - Libération