Books

Irish author on Wellcome Book Prize 2019 longlist

Five novels and seven non-fiction titles in contention for the 10th anniversary prize

Arnold Fanning: Mind on Fire is a “painfully intense, courageous and gripping account of [Fanning’s] journey to the underworld of madness and back”, according to The Irish Times

Tue Feb 5 2019 - 12:00

Dublin author Arnold Thomas Fanning has been longlisted for this year's Wellcome Book Prize, celebrating the 10th anniversary of the prestigious award.

Fanning's memoir,  Mind on Fire,  is one seven non-fiction titles and five novels in contention for the prize, which has been won twice in the past three years by Irish authors, Mark O'Connell for To be a Machine in 2018 and Suzanne O'Sullivan for It's All in Your Head in 2016.

The £30,000 Wellcome Book Prize celebrates exceptional works of literature that illuminate the many ways that health, medicine and illness touch our lives. This year's longlist, selected by a judging panel chaired by award-winning author Elif Shafak, features six debut voices including Tara Westover, author of the bestselling memoir Educated. Gender, identity and mental health emerge as prominent themes.

The longlist titles

  • Amateur: A true story about what makes a man (Canongate Books) by Thomas Page McBee (USA) Non-fiction
  • Astroturf (riverrun, Quercus) by Matthew Sperling (UK) Fiction Review
  • Educated (Windmill Books/Cornerstone) by Tara Westover (USA) Non-fiction Review
  • Freshwater (Faber & Faber) by Akwaeke Emezi (Nigeria) Fiction
  • Heart: A history (Oneworld) by Sandeep Jauhar (India/USA) Non-fiction
  • Mind on Fire: A memoir of madness and recovery (Penguin Ireland) by Arnold Thomas Fanning (Ireland) Non-fiction Review
  • Murmur (CB Editions) by Will Eaves (UK) Fiction Review
  • My Year of Rest and Relaxation (Jonathan Cape) by Ottessa Moshfegh (USA) Fiction Review
  • Polio: The odyssey of eradication (Hurst Publishers) by Thomas Abraham (UK) Non-fiction
  • Sight (John Murray Press) by Jessie Greengrass (UK) Fiction Review
  • The Trauma Cleaner: One woman's extraordinary life in death, decay and disaster (The Text Publishing Company) by Sarah Krasnostein (Australia/USA) Non-fiction
  • This Really Isn't About You (Picador) by Jean Hannah Edelstein (UK/USA) Non-fiction

Debut author Fanning, who is known for his stage plays such as the acclaimed McKenna's Fort, has been recognised for his memoir Mind on Fire, in which he gives a startlingly honest account of living with and recovering from psychosis.

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The Irish Times review called it a "painfully intense, courageous and gripping account of [Fanning's] journey to the underworld of madness and back. This is a brave and instructive book."

Fanning had his first experience of depression during adolescence, following the death of his mother. In his 20s, he was overcome by mania and delusions. Thus began a terrible period in which he was often suicidal, increasingly disconnected from family and friends, sometimes in trouble with the law. Drawing on his own memories, the recollections of people who knew him when he was at his worst, and medical records, Fanning has produced a beautifully written, devastatingly intense account of madness - and recovery, to the point where he has not had any serious illness for over a decade. Very few people have gone through what Fanning went through and emerged alive, well, and capable of telling the tale with such skill and insight. Mind on Fire is the gripping, sometimes harrowing and ultimately uplifting testament of a person who has visited hellish regions of the mind and survived.

Of the five fiction titles on the list, three are by debut novelists: Jessie Greengrass considers motherhood in her Women’s Prize shortlisted novel Sight; Akwaeke Emezi presents a metaphysical sense of self through physical and spiritual worlds in Freshwater; and Matthew Sperling’s brilliantly funny Astroturf gives an insight into toxic masculinity through the pursuit of perfection and performance-enhancing steroids.

The two further novels on the list look at what great bodily change can do to a person’s mind, with My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh chronicling a privileged New York woman’s decision to enter narcotic hibernation for a year, and Will Eaves fictionalising the chemical castration of mathematician Alan Turing in an extraordinary exploration of dreams, consciousness, science and the future in Murmur.

Memoirs dominate the seven non-fiction titles on the list, with modern masculinity untangled by Thomas Page McBee in Amateur, recounting his journey to become the first transgender man to box at Madison Square Garden, and Sarah Krasnostein’s astonishing biography The Trauma Cleaner uncovers the life of Sandra Pankhurst – husband, father, drag queen, sex worker, wife.

Jean Hannah Edelstein shares her experience of facing the genetic cancer mutation that killed her father in This Really Isn’t About You. Mortality is also touched upon by cardiologist Sandeep Jauhar in Heart: A history, as he contemplates on his own family history and the medical pioneers who risked their careers to better understand this extraordinary organ.

Modern medicine and the attitudes towards medical innovation are also illuminated in Tara Westover’s critically acclaimed memoir about her survivalist upbringing, Educated. In the final non-fiction title on the list, Polio: The odyssey of eradication, Thomas Abraham reports on the widespread rejection of the polio vaccine and why a campaign to rid the world of a crippling disease became a hostage of geopolitics.

Elif Shafak commented on behalf of the judging panel: “Chairing the 2019 Wellcome Book Prize alongside my esteemed fellow judges is a true honour and privilege. In a world that remains sadly divided into echo chambers and mental ghettoes, this prize is unique in its ability to connect various disciplines: medicine, health, literature, art and science. Reading and discussing at length all the books on our list has been fascinating from the very start. We now have a wonderful longlist, of which we are all very proud. Although it sure won’t be easy to choose the shortlist, and then, finally, the winner, I am thrilled about and truly grateful for this fascinating journey through stories, ideas, ground-breaking research and revolutionary knowledge.”

The shortlist will be announced on March 19th, with the winner revealed May 1st.