The shortlist for this year’s Wellcome book prize has been announced. This prize is awarded annually to the best new work of fiction or non-fiction that ‘celebrates the topics of health and medicine in literature’.

This year’s shortlist includes one novel, one memoir and four non-fiction books – all connected by our complex relationship with mortality. The titles explore bereavement, loss and the fragility of life, consider medical innovations developed to escape death, and reflect on why we should talk more about dying.

Here is the full shortlist:

• To Be a Machine by Mark O’Connell
• Stay With Me by Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀
• The Vaccine Race by Meredith Wadman
• Mayhem by Sigrid Rausing
• With the End in Mind by Kathryn Mannix
• The Butchering Art by Lindsey Fitzharris

Edmund de Waal commented on behalf of the judging panel: ‘The demand of judging the Wellcome Book Prize is to find books that have to be read, books to press into people’s hands, books that start debates or deepen them, that move us profoundly, surprise and delight and perplex us, that bring the worlds of medicine and health into urgent public conversation: books that show us what it is to be human. These are six powerful books to read and share.’

This year’s winner will be announced on Monday 30 April. You can find out more about the Wellcome book prize here.