This is the story of Christiaan Barnard, an excellent African heart surgeon who performed the first human-to-human heart transplant. He was born in Beaufort West, Cape Province, Union of South Africa, on 8 November 1922. He grew up in Beaufort West and his family was not wealthy. His father Adam Barnard was a church minister and his mother, Maria, played the church organ. Christiaan Barnard lost one of his four brothers, Adam, to heart disease. Adam died at the age of five. In 1940, he enrolled at Beufort West High School. Five years later, he obtained his bachelor's degree in medicine and surgery at the University of Cape Town. At the Groote Schuur Hospital in Cape Town, he completed his internship and residency. In 1948 he married Aletta Louvw and had two children with her, André and Deidre. After his marriage he worked in Ceres in the Western Cape as a general practitioner until 1951. He returned to Cape Town where he worked as a senior resident doctor. At the same time he was entered in the register of the medical department of the Groote Schuur hospital. He continued his studies and obtained his master's degree in medicine at the University of Cape Town two years later. He was a brilliant student and was able to obtain a doctorate in medicine from the same university for a thesis in the same year. He got a promotion and became enrolled in the surgery department of Groote Schuur Hospital. Christiaan Barnard was awarded the Charles Adams Memorial Scholar Shop and a Dazian Foundation Scholarship for a two-year study in the United States of America in 1956. He studied for postgraduate training in cardiothoracic surgery at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis. After these two years, he obtained a Master of Science in Surgery for one thesis and was promoted to Doctor of Philosophy for another thesis. After his trip to the United States in 1958, he decided to return to South Africa. He himself established the first cardiac unit at Groote Schuur Hospital and worked as a cardiothoracic surgeon. At the same time, he was a full-time lecturer and director of surgical research at the University of Cape Town. In 1961 he was appointed Head of the Division of Cardiothoracic Surgery at the University of Cape Town Teaching Hospital...