The right to look human: An autobiography by Penn, Jack

Signed by Author

The right to look human: An autobiography by Penn, Jack

Hardcover, ISBN 9780070912830
Publisher: McGraw-Hill, 1974 First Edition
Used - Very Good. Slight wear to DJ. Fading on spine. Book is clean and pages clear. Protected with a Cellophane cover.

Jack Penn (14 August 1909 – 27 November 1996), M.B., Ch.B., F.R.C.S.(E.), Mil. Dec. M.B.E., S.M., was a plastic and reconstructive surgeon, sculptor and author, who was also for a time a member of the President's Council in South Africa.

It has been said that Penn was as well known for his sculpture and his writings as for his plastic surgery.

^{Author came to fame because of his work during WW2 for soldiers & airmen burnt and disfigured. He worked in Japan to ameliorate the affects of the nuclear bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasake. He is also famed for his own sculptures.}

Penn's sculptures are to be seen in various places in South Africa and elsewhere. A bust of General Jan Christiaan Smuts was commissioned for the Jan Smuts Airport (now O. R. Tambo Airport), and a statue of Henrietta Stockdale, the nursing pioneer, is in the grounds of St Cyprian's Cathedral in Kimberley. His bust of Albert Schweitzer was presented to Strasbourg, while those of David Ben-Gurion and General Moshe Dayan are in Israel. He produced a bust of Joseph Lister, in England. He also made sketches and paintings.

Jack Penn wrote a number of books, mainly of a philosophical nature, which include his Letters to my Son (1975) – letters that were addressed to his son John who, like himself, became a plastic and reconstructive surgeon and served as president of the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery; The Right to Look Human: an autobiography (1976); Reflections on Life (1980); and To think is to live (nd).

Penn died on 27 November 1996, aged 87 years.