3 Review(s)

The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer is Siddhartha Mukherjee’s most famous work, which won him the Pulitzer Prize for Non-Fiction 2011. The book is a profound account of cancer and the human’s relentless fight against it. It is the perspective of a doctor, a researcher and an award-winning science writer, along with a cellular biologist’s meticulousness, a historian’s outlook, and the passion of a biographer. Summary of the Book The Emperor of All Maladies is an astoundingly eloquent and stirring record of a disease that humans have perished from and lived with, for over five thousand years. It is the story of human inventiveness, resilience and constant diligence. It is also a poignant narration of excessive pride, egotism and misunderstanding, leveraged against a disease that was believed to be beaten just three decades ago. Siddhartha Mukherjee describes discoveries, obstacles, triumphs and losses from centuries - from the days of Persian Queen Atossa, whose Greek slave had to cut off her breast, to the nineteenth-century beneficiary of nascent radiation treatments and chemotherapy. Mukherjee also tells us the story of his own leukaemia patient, Carla, along with other people who have soldiered through all the noxious, hurting, and strenuous systems, tests and treatments to survive. The book also offers a quick look into the prospects of cancer treatments. All in all, The Emperor of All Maladies provides a new, well-informed perspective on the way scientists, doctors, philosophers and common people have studied and understood the human body and the diseases it is sensitive to, for eons. About Siddhartha Mukherjee Siddhartha Mukherjee is a world-famous cancer physician and researcher. He holds an M.D. and a Ph.D. A Rhodes Scholar, he completed his studies at the Stanford University, the University of Oxford, and the Harvard Medical School. He was a Fellow at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute and an attending physician at the Massachusetts General Hospital and also the Harvard Medical School. He is the esteemed assistant professor of medicine at the Columbia University and a cancer physician at the CU/NYU Presbyterian Hospital. His highly acclaimed articles are published in the prestigious journals including Nature, The New York Times, Neuron, New England Journal of Medicine, the Journal of Clinical Investigation, and The New Republic.