Welcome to Literary Friction. I'm Carrie Plitt, here as usual with my co-host Octavia Bright.

Hi, Octavia. Hi, Carrie. We're standing today to record. I'm Carrie Plitt here as usual with my co-host Octavia Bright. Hi Octavia. Hi Carrie. We're

standing today to record. I'm feeling open and energized. How about you? Jazz. Yeah, totally

jazz. I'm tired. I'm already tired, actually. You have a look of irony on your face.

I feel as though you're mocking me. Not at all. Okay, well, anyway, I'm very excited. Today, we are

teaming up with the Welcome Prize to bring you a special show about medicine and literature.

We are indeed. And we've got two very special guests this month, both shortlisted for the

2017 prize this year. First, we're going to interview David Franz, whose nonfiction book,

How to Survive a

plague is a riveting and devastating firsthand account of the fight against AIDS in the 1980s

in New York. And then we're talking to Sarah Moss, whose fifth novel, The Tidal Zone, is a complex

and beautiful story about family life in the wake of a serious medical emergency. Two very different,

but beautiful books, I think. Yeah I agree

they're fabulous. So and then finally we will be talking about medicine more

generally in literature from the work of Thomas Mann who wrote the Magic

Mountain to Atoll Galande and giving our book recommendations so stay tuned

and let literary friction be your tonic for the next hour.

Our first guest on the show about medicine and literature is David France.

France is a contributing editor for New York Magazine and has also written for the New York Times.

His 2012 documentary film, How to Survive a Plague, was an Oscar finalist, won a Directors Guild Award and a Peabody Award, and was nominated for two Emmys, among other accolades.

His latest book of the same name published last year tells the story of how citizens and science tamed AIDS over the course of 20 years.

We spoke to David last week.

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