Indian-American physician Siddhartha Mukherjee has become the fourth person of Indian origin to bag the prestigious Pulitzer Prize 2011 in the general non-fiction category for his acclaimed book on cancer, 'The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer'. The first being Gobind Behari Lal way back in 1937 awarded with the Pulitzer in the Reporting category for his coverage of science at the tercentenary of Harvard University when he was working for Universal Service and similarly followed Jhumpa Lahiri for fiction for her collection of stories "Interpreters of Maladies" and Journalist-writer of Indian origin Geeta Anand.
According to the Pulitzer citation, the book by the New York-based cancer physician and researcher , "The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer", published by HarperCollins, was described by the jury as "an elegant inquiry, at once clinical and personal, into the long history of an insidious disease that, despite treatment breakthroughs, still bedevils medical science", said P M Sukumar, CEO of HarperCollins India, "Siddhartha Mukherjee has produced a real tour de force, with 'The Emperor of All Maladies'.
The Pulitzer for general non-fiction is awarded to a "distinguished and appropriately documented book of nonfiction by an American author that is not eligible for consideration in any other category". It carries a USD 10,000 award.
India-born Mukherjee is an assistant professor of medicine at Columbia University and a staff cancer physician at Columbia University Medical Centre
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