Author and Cancer Physician Siddhartha Mukherjee to Speak at Duke, Nov. 28

Pulitzer Prize-winning author and oncologist Siddhartha Mukherjee will discuss his book The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer at 6 p.m. Wednesday, November 28, in Duke University’s Page Auditorium. The event is free and open to the public.

Mukherjee is a leading cancer physician and researcher at Columbia University. Ten years in the writing, The Emperor of All Maladies is a magnificent, profoundly humane “biography” of cancer—from its first documented appearances thousands of years ago to the epic battles of modern times to cure, control, and conquer it. Mukherjee examines this shape-shifting and formidable disease with a cellular biologist’s precision, a historian’s perspective, and a biographer’s passion. The result is an astonishingly lucid and eloquent chronicle of a disease humans have lived with—and perished from—for more than five thousand years. The book won the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction and was named one of the 10 Best Books of 2010 by the New York Times.

A Rhodes scholar, Siddhartha Mukherjee graduated from Stanford University, the University of Oxford, and Harvard Medical School. He has published articles in Nature, The New England Journal of Medicine, The New York Times, and The New Republic. He lives in New York with his wife and daughters.

Mukherjee will be delivering the Weaver Memorial Lecture, hosted every other year by the Duke University Libraries in memory of William B. Weaver, a 1972 Duke graduate and former member of the Library Advisory Board. The event is co-sponsored by the Office of the Provost, Office of the Chancellor for Health Affairs, the Duke Department of Medicine, and the Duke Cancer Institute.

Copies of the book will be available for sale at the event.

Admission is free, but tickets are required and are available through the Duke Box Office. Visit tickets.duke.edu for more information.

EVENT PARKING: A limited number of free parking spaces will be available on a first-come, first-served basis on the West Campus Quad in front of Duke Chapel starting at 5 p.m. (Click here for map to the West Campus Quad). Parking will also be available in the Bryan Center Parking Garage (Parking Garage IV) for a $5 charge. (Click here for map to Bryan Center Garage.)

Media are invited to attend the event, but recording is not permitted. Members of the media interested in covering the talk should contact Aaron Welborn, Director of Communications, Duke University Libraries, at 919-660-5816 or aaron.welborn@duke.edu by November 26.