By Vikram Paralkar

Synopsis: Shadowing an elderly librarian on his first day at the great Central Library, Máximo is thrilled to get a peek at the exclusive Encyclopedia of Medicine. It’s a dizzying collection of maladies: an amnesia that causes everyone you’ve ever met to forget you exist, while you remain perfectly, painfully aware of your history. A wound that grows with each dark thought or evil deed you commit but shrinks with every act of kindness. A disease that causes your body to imitate death, stopping your heart, cooling your blood. Will the fit pass before they bury you—or after?

As Máximo soon discovers, medicine at the Central Library may be more than he bargained for.

The Afflictions is a magical compendium of pseudo-diseases, an encyclopedia of archaic medicine written by a contemporary physician and scientist. Little by little, these bizarre and mystical afflictions frame an eternal struggle: between human desire and the limits of bodily existence.

Vikram Paralkar was born in Mumbai, India. He moved to the United States in 2005 after completing medical school and is now a hematologist and researcher at the University of Pennsylvania. His writing has been published in the New England Journal of Medicine and he is a recipient of the American Society of Hematology’s Scholar Award.

Published: October 2014 | ISBN: 978-1-941360-02-6

Mini-bio: Vikram Paralkar was born in Mumbai, India. He moved to the United States in 2005 after completing medical school and is now a hematologist and researcher at the University of Pennsylvania. His writing has been published in the New England Journal of Medicine and he is a recipient of the American Society of Hematology’s Scholar Award. – From Lanternfish Press

Author’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/vikramparalkar

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