Neurologist Masud Husain has won the 2025 Royal Society Trivedi Science Book Prize, given annually to a book of popular science writing, for Our Brains, Our Selves: What a Neurologist’s Patients Taught Him About the Brain.
Husain’s book, published in February by Canongate, explores how people’s identities are influenced by brain functions, as revealed through the stories of seven of his patients.
Sandra Knapp, the chair of judges for the prize, said in a statement, “With Our Brain, Our Selves, Masud Husain has written something that is both scientifically rigorous and deeply engaging, which is no small feat. This book is a beautiful exploration of how problems in the brain can cause people to lose their sense of self, such that they become unrecognizable to loved ones or at times rejected by a society to which they felt they belonged. All this is skilfully interwoven with Husain’s personal story of moving to the U.K. as an immigrant in the 1960s, where he found himself grappling with his own sense of belonging.”
The Trivedi Science Book Prize, which comes with a cash award of 25,000 British pounds (about $33,600), was established by the U.K. scientific academy the Royal Society in 1988. Previous winners include Jared Diamond for Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies; Gaia Vince for Adventures in the Anthropocene: A Journey to the Heart of the Planet We Made; and Ed Yong for An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us.
Michael Schaub is a contributing writer.
