Below are recommended works of fiction that contain health or illness narratives.
NOTE: The UT Libraries' physical buildings are closed due to COVID-19, and print collections are unavailable. We linked to ebooks when available. If you need assistance finding a work of fiction during this time, please contact Gina Bastone, the English Librarian, g.bastone@austin.utexas.edu.
The Yellow Wallpaper by
Charlotte Perkins Gilman's 1892 short story, The Yellow Wallpaper is a valuable piece of American feminist literature that reveals attitudes toward the psychological health of women in the nineteenth century. Diagnosed with temporary nervous depression - a slight hysterical tendency by her physician husband, a woman is confined to an upstairs bedroom. Descending into psychosis at the complete lack of stimulation, she starts obsessing over the room's yellow...
Love in the Time of Cholera by
Set in a country on the Caribbean coast of South America, this is a story about a woman and two men and their entwined lives. From the author of the legendary One Hundred Years of Solitude.
Pale Horse, Pale Rider: Three Short Novels by 
"The death of Ivan Ilyitch" in The novels and other works of Lyof N. Tolstoï, vol. 14 by 
Chekhov's Doctors by
In his brief but distinguished life, Anton Chekhov was a doctor, a documentary essayist, an admired dramatist, and a humanitarian. He remains a nineteenth-century Russian literary giant whose prose continues to offer moral insight and to resonate with readers across the world. Chekhov experienced no conflict between art and science or art and medicine. He believed that knowledge of one complemented the other. Chekhov brought medical knowledge and sensitivity to his creative writing--he had an intimate knowledge of the world of medicine and the skills of doctoring, and he utilized this information in his approach to his characters. His sensibility as a medical insider gave special poignancy to his physician characters. The doctors in his engaging tales demonstrate a wide spectrum of behavior, personality, and character. At their best, they demonstrate courage, altruism, and tenderness, qualities that lie at the heart of good medical practice. At their worst, they display insensitivity and incompetency. The stories in Chekhov's Doctors are powerful portraits of doctors in their everyday lives, struggling with their own personal problems as well as trying to serve their patients. The fifth volume in the acclaimed Literature and Medicine Series, Chekhov's Doctors will serve as a rich text for professional health care educators as well as for general readers.
The Handmaid's Tale by
A look at the near future presents the story of Offred, a Handmaid in the Republic of Gilead, once the United States, an oppressive world where women are no longer allowed to read and are valued only as long as they are viable for reproduction.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 Generic License.