The story of cancer is a human one—a tale of chance discoveries, seized opportunities and human endurance. From innovative early surgeries to the Curies’ ultimately tragic work with radiation, from Sidney Farber’s hugely risky discovery of chemotherapy to the author’s treatment of his own patients, The Emperor of All Maladies is a profound and revelatory portrait of an enigmatic disease humans have lived with, and perished from, for more than five thousand years.
In this updated edition of Siddhartha Mukherjee’s instant classic, four new chapters reveal what has changed in the universe of cancer in the years since the book was first published. With moving eloquence, he offers an insight into our evolving understanding of cancer’s causes and the emerging, revolutionary new treatments that might shape its future, including those that Mukherjee himself has helped devise.
The Acclaim That Defines a Classic
‘A riveting book … profound, eloquent and searching.’ —SUNDAY TIMES
‘What a story—full of quixotic characters, therapeutic triumphs and setbacks, and recent historical events—with all the hubris and pathos of Greek tragedy.’—WASHINGTON POST
‘Essential reading … this elegantly written overview allows us to look a once-whispered-about illness squarely in the eye.’ —INDEPENDENT
‘The notion of “popular science” doesn’t come close to describing this achievement. It is literature.’ —OBSERVER
‘Powerful and ambitious … one of the most extraordinary stories in medicine.’ —NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW
‘So beautifully written; this is literature, not popular science.’—EVENING STANDARD
‘Masterly . . . at the same time an encyclopaedic history of scientific progress against history and a ripping yarn.’—GUARDIAN
‘Stirring … With a Dickensian command of character and an instinct for the drama of discovery, [Mukherjee] makes science not merely intelligible but thrilling.’—O, THE OPRAH MAGAZINE
About The Author
Siddhartha Mukherjee is a physician, researcher, and acclaimed author of The Emperor of All Maladies, The Laws of Medicine, The Gene, and The Song of the Cell. An associate professor of medicine at Columbia University, he has published widely in Nature, The New England Journal of Medicine, Cell, and The New Yorker. He lives in New York with his wife and daughters.
Visit SiddharthaMukherjee.com for more information.
Published by HarperCollins
Non-Fiction
Publishing January 2026
This edition will be released simultaneously in hardback and paperback.
- Hardback | 720 pp | INR 1499
- Paperback | 720 pp | INR 999
