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Resemblance. Two Bengalis, early forties, writers, won the same international prize, and the name of the books having same key word.
It is Jhumpa Lahiri and Siddhartha Mukherjee. Age, 43 and 40. Both of them awarded the coveted Pulitzer Prize. The word “Maladies” are omnipresent in the title of both the books.
A coincidence indeed. But it is true, that the word maladies proved to be auspicious for both these Indian writers.
Jhumpa Lahiri started the journey by winning the Pulitzer in 2000 by writing the fictional block buster, Interpreter of Maladies.
Her baton has successfully taken by another Indian Siddhartha Mukherjee just after 10 years, and finished the lap with a crowning glory by winning the Pulitzer once more with a subtle change of title – The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer.
A physician, researcher and an endless fighter against cancer, the dreaded malady has really done a commendable job. A story where Cancer is the main character is something unique.
He pen down his 571 page magnum opus in an effort to “demystify” cancer.
The judges commented on” The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer” – “an elegant inquiry, at once clinical and personal, into the long history of an insidious disease that, despite treatment breakthroughs, still bedevils medical science”.
From Stanford to Oxford, from Columbia to Delhi, everybody is proud of him. Go ahead Mukherjee, prove once more east or west India is best, and also the old saying what Bengal thinks today, India thinks tomorrow.
