War wounded book in line for literary award

The story of how the First World War’s wounded soldiers were treated is one of six books shortlisted for a £30,000 literary prize.
By The Newsroom
Published 26th Feb 2014, 00:01 BST

Wounded: From Battlefield To Blighty by Emily Mayhew is in the running for the Wellcome Book Prize, along with Sarah Wise’s Inconvenient People – about people falsely imprisoned in asylums in Victorian England – and Andrew Solomon’s critically acclaimed study of family life, Far From The Tree: A Dozen Kinds Of Love.

Also shortlisted are Elizabeth Gilbert’s novel about botany and exploration, The Signature Of All Things, Oliver Sacks’ study Hallucinations, and Adam Rutherford’s biological study Creation: The Origin Of Life/The Future Of Life.

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Poet Andrew Motion, who chaired the judging panel, said: “The Wellcome Book Prize highlights the importance of literature in connecting medicine, life and art. We have produced a shortlist that covers an exciting range of subjects and genres - six excellent books that in their different ways all tell us new and often surprising things about the human condition.”

The prize, which recognises the best book on a medical theme, will be handed out at a ceremony at the Wellcome Collection in central London on April 29.