Wellcome Book prize celebrates 10th anniversary in 2019

I was thrilled to be invited to participate in the blog tour of the tenth anniversary of Wellcome book prize. Over the next few days, bloggers will be showcasing titles of the shortlists from the last nine years.

The Wellcome Book Prize 2019 marks the 10th anniversary of the prestigious award. Over the last decade, the prize has recognised an eclectic variety of titles that deal with medicine, health or illness and their impact on our life. Launched in 2009, the Wellcome Book Prize, worth £30,000, has featured many types of books, both fiction and non-fiction, including novels (Mend the Living by Maylis de Kerangal), memoirs (The Iceberg by Marion Coutts) and popular science (It’s All in Your Head by Suzanne O’Sullivan). Here is an overview of the first year that the prize was awarded.

The shortlist of 2009 included six prominent titles that focus on health and its aspects on life.

1.Keeper by Andrea Gillies [Biography]

The life of a family living with a relative with Alzheimer’s. The book looks at the perspective of the sufferer and those around him.

2.Intuition by Allegra Goodman [Fiction]

Set in a cancer research laboratory in Boston that plunges into controversy.

3.Three Letter Plague by Jonny Steinberg [Fiction]

Steinberg travels to a small village in South Africa to research the HIV/AIDS epidemic there.

4.Tormented Hope by Brian Dillon [Health psychology]

Dillon looks at nine prominent hypochondriacs, including; Charlotte Brontë, Charles Darwin and Florence Nightingale and how the mind works with/against the body

5.Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese [Fiction]

Life of two orphaned twins told against the political changes in Ethiopia.

6.Illness by Havi Carel

About living with the potentially life-threatening illness, lymphangio-leiomyomatosis (LAM), a rare lung disease. Carel is one of the 120 women in the UK to suffer from the disease.

The winner of the Wellcome Book prize 2009 was Andrea Gillies for Keeper.

And that brings us to the book I’d like to showcase today from the shortlist – Abraham Verghese’s Cutting for Stone. Abraham Verghese is an American physician and author. He is the Professor for the Theory and Practice of Medicine at Stanford University of Medical School. He is also the author of three best-selling books – two memoirs and a novel. He received the National Humanities Medal from President Obama in 2015.

Synopsis of Cutting for Stone

Cutting for Stone is set in in 1960s & 1970s Ethiopia and 1980s America. Marion and Shiva Stone are twin brothers born of a secret union between an Indian nun and a brash British surgeon at a mission hospital in Addis Ababa. Orphaned by their mother’s death in childbirth and their father’s disappearance, this is a coming of age story told through Ethiopia’s political unrest. The twins have a special connection and a share a fascination with medicine. Their love for the same woman tears them apart. This is a story of love, politics and betrayal. A large part of the story is set in hospitals and several characters are medical practitioners.

Wellcome Book Prize 2019

The longlist for this year’s Wellcome book prize will be announced in February. Elif Shafak, the award winning author,  chairs the panel this year. She is joined by Kevin Fong, consultant anaesthetist at University College London Hospitals; Viv Groskop, writer, broadcaster and stand-up comedian; Jon Day, writer, critic, and academic; and Rick Edwards, broadcaster and author. The shortlist will be announced in March and the winner declared in April.

Being part of the tour was an honour. I look forward to reading Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese, a book that has been on my TBR ever since I read Paul Kalanithi’s When Breath Becomes Air. Follow the blog tour for more titles from the Wellcome Book Prize list. You can also follow Wellcome Book Prize for updates or the hashtag #WBP2019.