The Wellcome Trust Book Prize was re-launched tonight by 2014 Chair of Judges Andrew Motion, with a bigger prize fund, new branding, and a new home in the heart of Wellcome Collection. The Prize will now be known as Wellcome Book Prize, and will bear the strapline, Books for the incurably curious.
On the occasion of its fifth anniversary, the changes to the Prize were unveiled at an event held in the Wellcome Trust Gibbs Building on Euston Road, which houses Thomas Heatherwick's spectacular Bleigiessen sculpture. The event was attended by key figures from literary, cultural and scientific institutions, including The British Council, The Institute of Arts and Ideas, The Old Vic, The Department of Health and the British Science Association – along with publishers, authors and key members of the media.
It was announced that the prize money would increase from £25,000 to £30,000 per year, making the Wellcome Book Prize among the most lucrative literary prizes available. The Prize will now be celebrated in the spring, with the shortlist announcement taking place at the end of February 2014, and the winner announced at the end of April.
2014 will be an exciting year for Wellcome Collection whose literary ambitions are growing alongside a £17.5m development of its venue. New galleries and spaces will open in the autumn including an expansion of the Wellcome Library and the transformation of its Reading Room into an entirely new public space, bringing together the rich holdings of the Library with the innovative exhibition and events programming Wellcome Collection is celebrated for.
Ken Arnold, Head of Public Programmes at Wellcome Collection said: "This initiative is all about the mutual illumination that literature and medicine offer each other. 2014 will see a significant expansion in our cultural offer through a major redevelopment of Wellcome Collection, and this enhanced book prize allows us further to celebrate the role of books in Wellcome's particular concern with the human condition."
Chair of judges for 2014 the writer and former poet laureate Andrew Motion introduced his fellow judges - an eminent panel of figures from across the literary, academic and scientific worlds: writer and cultural commentator Lisa Appignanesi; novelist, film-maker and Head of Literature at the Southbank Centre James Runcie; medical journalist and television presenter Michael Mosley; and Guardian columnist Hadley Freeman
Andrew Motion says: "I'm delighted to be presiding over such an exceptional panel of judges, and in a year of greater ambition for the Wellcome Book Prize. With more submissions entered this year than ever before, we have a major task ahead of us, but we couldn't be more excited by the challenge.
"Curiosity. It was a comparative for Alice - 'curiouser and curiouser', she said (among other things) - and comparatively speaking life is nothing without it. Life on earth that is. Let alone life on Mars, where the exploring-machine is called Curiosity.
"And as for medical curiosity, or curiosity in a medical context: we'd be nowhere without it. All dying young or perhaps entirely extinct as a species. Which means the chance to show an equal curiosity in judging this prize, and to have the prospect of rewarding it, is a fine and honouring thing."
The Wellcome Book Prize highlights the role of books and reading for pleasure in expanding our horizons. It celebrates the very best books of the year with a medical theme; books that challenge our curiosity, fire our imagination, inspire debate, and help us to think differently about the world around us. We are all touched by medicine and health at some point in our lives, and stories that explore these encounters make us think afresh about what it means to be human.
The Wellcome Book Prize is open to both fiction and non-fiction titles which have been published in the UK during the Prize year. Previous winners of the prize have been Thomas Wright for Circulation in 2012, Alice LaPlante for Turn of Mind in 2011, Rebecca Skloot for The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks in 2010, and Andrea Gillies for Keeper: Living with Nancy – A Journey into Alzheimer's in 2009. 2014 has had more submissions than ever before; testimony to the rich diversity of books available which challenge this exciting brief.
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