Author guide
Siddhartha Mukherjee is an Indian-born American physician, hematologist-oncologist, cancer researcher, and science writer. A Rhodes Scholar educated at Stanford University, the University of Oxford, and Harvard Medical School, he is an associate professor of medicine at Columbia University. His writing combines scientific history, clinical experience, biology, and personal narrative. His first book, The Emperor of All Maladies, won the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction.
Catalog record updated .
nonfiction · First published 2022
Presenting revelatory and exhilarating stories of scientists, doctors, and the patients whose lives may be saved by their work, the author draws on his own experience as a researcher, doctor, and prolific reader to explore how the discovery of cells created a new kind of medicine based on the therapeutic manipulation of cells.
Not sure where to begin?
The best entry point to Mukherjee's work: his first book and a Pulitzer Prize-winning, highly accessible history of cancer.
Outside the series
nonfiction · 2010
The Emperor of All Maladies is a magnificent, profoundly humane “biography” of cancer—from its first documented appearances thousands of years ago through the epic battles in the twentieth century to cure, control, and conquer it to a…
nonfiction · 2015
nonfiction · 2016
Spanning the globe and several centuries, The Gene is the story of the quest to decipher the master-code that makes and defines humans, that governs our form and function. The story of the gene begins in an obscure Augustinian abbey in…
nonfiction · 2022
Presenting revelatory and exhilarating stories of scientists, doctors, and the patients whose lives may be saved by their work, the author draws on his own experience as a researcher, doctor, and prolific reader to explore how the…
Siddhartha Mukherjee is an Indian-born American physician, hematologist-oncologist, cancer researcher, and science writer. He is an associate professor of medicine at Columbia University and practices medical oncology.
Sources: cancer.columbia.edu (opens in a new tab)pulitzer.org (opens in a new tab)
He was born in New Delhi, India. He earned a biology degree from Stanford University, a DPhil in immunology from Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar, and an MD from Harvard Medical School.
His writing grew out of his clinical work with cancer patients; during oncology training, he kept notes to understand the emotional and scientific complexity of their care. He has also identified physician-writer Lewis Thomas as a major influence.
Sources: magazine.hms.harvard.edu (opens in a new tab)cuimc.columbia.edu (opens in a new tab)
He won the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction and the 2019 Lewis Thomas Prize for Writing About Science.
Sources: pulitzer.org (opens in a new tab)cuimc.columbia.edu (opens in a new tab)
He combines clinical experience, historical research, and biology to make complex medicine accessible to general readers, while continuing research on blood development and blood cancers at Columbia. This dual role as physician-scientist and public-facing writer defines his influence.
Sources: pulitzer.org (opens in a new tab)cancer.columbia.edu (opens in a new tab)
