War wounded book on prize shortlist

T he story of how the First World War’s wounded soldiers were treated is one of six books shortlisted for a £30,000 literary prize which will be award later today.

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 of hallucinations, and Adam Rutherford’s biological study Creation: The Origin Of Life/The Future Of Life.

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.

“They range from frightening tales of ‘inconvenient’ Victorians to the strange world of hallucinations, from the return journeys of Great War battlefield casualties to an important new concept of ‘horizontal families’, and from a beautiful story of a 19th century explorer to a fresh take on the origins of life.”

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.

War wounded book on prize shortlist