Review: Vivien Horler

Heartbreaker – Christiaan Barnard and the first heart transplant, by James-Brent Styan (Jonathan Ball Publishers)

Chris Barnard, the first man to perform a heart transplant, wasn’t a particularly nice man.

Answering a question in a TV interview about the fact he had left his first wife, Louwtjie, who was in her 40s, to marry the 19-year-old heiress Barbara Zoellner, Barnard replied with a broad smile: “Why eat biltong when you can have fillet steak?”

Interestingly, Louwtjie’s own book about her marriage was titled Heartbreak.

He loved women and was serially unfaithful to all his three wives. He also kissed and told: in his Continue reading →