Seeing is Believing by Simon Balderstone

Book Description

Secondhand. Near fine.

It was August 1992 and Tran Van Giap was nine years old. At that age, he had experienced all the despair and frustrations of having sight in one eye only. It had seemed so hopeless. But today was special. He had heard on the radio of the imminent arrival of a world-famous eye doctor who, apparently miraculously, was restoring sight to cataract sufferers like himself. His family was poor but they scraped together the bus fare to enable him to make his way to the capital.

Alone, pushing his way through a throng of onlookers, patients, medical staff, reporters and photographers, he captured the attention of Professor Fred Hollows. Always on the side of the underdog and despite his own very precarious state of health, Fred made Tran Van Giap one of his first patients.

Tran Van Giap now leads a very different life from that mapped out for him had he not had the courage and determination to make that 100-kilometre journey to Hanoi…and Fred Hollows