The Mistress of All Illnesses

A scientific thriller about a malignant tumour, this book has surprised readers worldwide with its gripping pace and deeply human message. Its author, Siddhartha Mukherjee—a physician, scientist, and award-winning writer—examines cancer with the precision of a cellular biologist, the perspective of a historian, and the passion of a biographer. The result is a wonderfully compelling chronicle of a disease that people have lived with and died from for over five thousand years. This biography of cancer begins with the first documented cases in antiquity, builds to an epic battle in the twentieth century as humanity strove to cure, control, and conquer the disease, and culminates in a radically new understanding of its essence. For this book, Mukherjee was awarded the Pulitzer Prize (2011) and The Guardian First Book Award. TIME magazine included the work in its list of the 100 most influential English-language books since 1923, and The New York Times Magazine named it one of the 100 best non-fiction books of all time. Siddhartha Mukherjee (born 1970) is a world-renowned American physician and scientist of Indian origin, specialising in haematology and oncology. He studied at top American universities and now works at Columbia University in New York.