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 Australian author Sarah Krasnostein’s The Trauma Cleaner. Our Carlton bookseller Kara described it as as ‘an incredible story’ featuring ‘understated yet elegant prose [that] is reminiscent of Helen Garner’ in her review.

The shortlist also features two novels, two memoirs and one non-fiction book – all connected by our complex relationship with out bodies. The titles explore mental health, facing mortality, identity and gender, and the connection between the body and mind.

Here is the full shortlist:

• Amateur: A True Story About What Makes a Man by Thomas Page McBee
• Heart: A History by Sandeep Jauhar
• Mind on Fire: A Memoir of Madness and Recovery by Arnold Thomas Fanning
• Murmur by Will Eaves
• My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh
• The Trauma Cleaner by Sarah Krasnostein

Elif Shafak commented on behalf of the judging panel: ‘While the books selected are strikingly unique in their subject matter and style, the rich variety of writing also shares much in common: each is raw and brave and inspirational, deepening our understanding of what it truly means to be human through the transformative power of storytelling.’

This year’s winner will be announced on Wednesday 1 May. You can find out more about the Wellcome book prize here.