The Emperor of All Maladies
Oncologist Siddhartha Mukherjee sets out to write what he calls a biography of cancer, a single, sweeping history of an illness that has shadowed the human species for thousands of years. Opening with his own residency at a Boston hospital, he works backward through Egyptian mummies with bone tumors, Victorian radical mastectomies, the invention of chemotherapy in a World War II mustard-gas ward, the long fight to link smoking and lung cancer, and the molecular revolution that has begun to turn some cancers into chronic, livable diseases. Between the historical chapters he follows individual patients, scientists, and activists whose stories animate the science. Published in 2010 and winner of the Pulitzer Prize, it remains one of the most ambitious and readable medical narratives of the century.
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Oncologist and researcher Siddhartha Mukherjee tells the story of cancer as a biography of the disease, from ancient Egyptian descriptions through the rise of chemotherapy and into modern targeted and immune therapies.
Yes. The Emperor of All Maladies won the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction. Siddhartha Mukherjee is also the author of The Gene and The Song of the Cell.
Yes. Ken Burns produced a 2015 PBS documentary series, Cancer: The Emperor of All Maladies, based on the book. The series adapts much of the historical narrative.
The Emperor of All Maladies was written by Siddhartha Mukherjee, published in 2010 by Scribner.
The Emperor of All Maladies is 582 pages in standard print editions, though page counts vary slightly between hardcover, paperback, and large-print formats.
At an average reading pace of about 250 words per minute, The Emperor of All Maladies takes most readers 9 to 13 hours to finish.
The Emperor of All Maladies is a standalone novel by Siddhartha Mukherjee, not part of a series.
The Emperor of All Maladies is available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats from Amazon, Bookshop.org, ThriftBooks, and most major bookstores.
