Roth's polio novel competes for medical lit prize

[November 09, 2011]  LONDON (AP) -- Philip Roth's account of the lingering guilt left by a New Jersey polio epidemic is among six works shortlisted for a lucrative literature prize.

"Nemesis" joins Sarah Manguso's autobiographical "The Two Kinds of Decay," and Dr. Siddhartha Mukherjee's Pulitzer Prize-winning cancer saga "The Emperor of all Maladies" on the shortlist for the Wellcome Trust Book Prize, which honors medical-themed books.

Other contenders are "Turn of Mind," a thriller told from the perspective of a murder suspect suffering from dementia; "State of Wonder," about a trek to the Amazon to uncover the fate of a missing pharmaceutical researcher; and "My Dear I Wanted To Tell You," a World War I-era tale of the psychological devastation of battle.

The prize will be awarded later Wednesday.

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Online:

http://www.wellcome.ac.uk/

[Associated Press]

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