F. Gonzalez-Crussi


F. Gonzalez-Crussi, Professor Emeritus, is a Mexican physician and writer whose career extended along two disciplines, medicine and literature..

Biography

Born in a modest neighborhood of Mexico City in 1936, F. Gonzalez-Crussi was raised by his widowed mother, who owned a small drugstore. He studied medicine in the National Autonomous University of Mexico, and graduated in 1961. He migrated to the United States, where he obtained post-graduate training in the specialty of pathology, later subspecializing in pediatric pathology.
He began his career in 1967 in academic medicine in Canada, at Queen’s University, and moved back to the United States in 1973, where he was a Professor of Pathology at Indiana University until 1978, when he relocated to Chicago, there to become Professor of Pathology at Northwestern University School of Medicine and Head of Laboratories of Children’s Memorial Hospital until his retirement in 2001. His literary work first became known in 1985, with the appearance of his book Notes of an Anatomist, to considerable critical acclaim. He became a naturalized American citizen in 1987.
Among the awards he has won is a Fellowship of the Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, a Certificate of Achievement by the Office of the Secretary of State of Illinois, a career achievement prize by the ABC Hospital of Mexico City and a Medal to Merit from the University of Veracruz, Mexico. Between 2005 and 2007 he was appointed as consultant in the discipline of literary essay, in the Mexican government’s office in charge of promoting culture and the arts, F.O.N.C.A. . In 2014 he was awarded the Merck Literary Prize in Rome, for his book "Carrying the Heart". On November 19, 2019 he was awarded the "Pedro Henriquez Ureña International Prize for the Essay" given by the Mexican Academy of the Language

Awards and recognitions

In the medical field, in addition to about 200 articles in peer-reviewed journals of his medical specialty, he wrote two books:
Extragonadal Teratomas, a text-atlas published under the auspices of the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, Washington, D. C., 1982.
Nephroblastoma and Related Renal Tumors of Childhood, CRC Press, Boca Raton, Florida, 1984.
In the literary field, his work has been chiefly in the essay genre, in both English and Spanish.
Books written in English:
Notes of an Anatomist First prize for nonfiction of the Society of Midland Authors. Reviewed in the New York Times, 1985.
Three Forms of Sudden Death.
On the Nature of Things Erotic. An excerpt was published as first serial in The New York Times Book Review.
The Five Senses. Nominee for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for the publishing year August 1, 1988 to July 31, 1989.
The Day of the Dead and Other Mortal Reflections. Reviewed in The New York Times, 1994. and Reader, 1994.
Suspended Animation. Nominee in the 1966 PEN/Spielfogel-Diamonstein Award for the Art of the Essay. Reviewed by John Banville, The New York Times, 1995.
There is a World Elsewhere. Reviewed in Chicago Tribune 1998.
On Being Born and Other Difficulties. Reviewed in The Washington Post in 2004.
On Seeing. Things Seen, Unseen and Obscene.. Reviewed in Nature by Sir Richard Gregory, 2006.
A Short History of Medicine,.
Carrying the Heart. Reviewed in The New York Times in 2009.
Books written and published in Spanish:
Partir es Morir un Poco.

Venir al Mundo.
La Fábrica del Cuerpo.
Horas Chinas.
Remedios de Antaño.
El Rostro y El Alma. Siete Ensayos Fisiognomicos
La Enfermedad del Amor.
Foreign translations of Dr. Gonzalez-Crussi’s books include: Dutch, French, Spanish, Italian, German, Portuguese, Slovakian, Czech, Polish, and Japanese.
In English language, Dr. Gonzalez-Crussi has contributed book reviews for The New York Times, Nature magazine, The Washington Post and Commonweal magazine. Excerpts of his work have appeared in The New Yorker, Harper’s Magazine, The Sciences. In Spanish language, his work has appeared in various periodical publications of Mexico and Peru
Theater play:
The work of Dr. Gonzalez Crussi was adapted for the stage in 1995 by a theatrical company of Chicago, under the name "Memento Mori". Reviewed in Chicago Tribune, and Chicago Sun Times in 1995
This play was also represented in Seattle by the Aha! Theater Company. Reviewed in The Seattle Times in 1996.
Television Documentary:
The literary work of Dr. Gonzalez Crussi was featured by the British Broadcasting Corporation. The BBC production was entitled “Day of the Dead”, which was filed in the British Film Institute archive. It was part of the TV Series “Bookmark”, and was first aired in the UK on April 27, 1992. The film was reviewed in The Daily Telegraph ; in The Times ''; and in BMJ in 1992.

Footnotes