The shortlist for this year’s Wellcome book prize has been announced. This prize is awarded annually to the best new work of fiction or non-fiction that ‘celebrates the topics of health and medicine in literature’.
The 2017 shortlist comprises four non-fiction and two fiction titles, including the first posthumously published title and the first translated title to be shortlisted for the prize.
Here is the full shortlist:
- How to Survive a Plague by David France
- When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi
- Mend the Living by Maylis de Kerangal (translated by Jessica Moore)
- The Tidal Zone by Sarah Moss
- The Gene by Siddhartha Mukherjee
- I Contain Multitudes by Ed Yong
Chair of Judges and celebrated Scottish crime writer Val McDermid says: ‘What these six challenging, diverse and enriching titles have in common is their insight into what it means to be human. Together they form a mosaic that illuminates our relationship with health and medicine. It spans our origins, our deaths and much that lies between, from activism to acts of human kindness.’
This year’s winner will be announced on 24 April. You can find out more about the Wellcome book prize here.
