A hundred years ago, Virginia Woolf published her second most famous essay, “On Being Ill.” Written during a prolonged bout of illness the previous fall, Woolf asked why sickness—an unavoidable feature of human experience—is represented so rarely and inadequately in literature. “It becomes strange indeed that illness has not taken its place with love, battle, and jealousy among the prime themes of literature,” she wrote. Now Hermione Hoby writes, “The intervening century has qualified, if hardly refuted, the claim that sickness is neglected in fiction.” Hoby assesses how writers such as D. H. Lawrence, Albert Camus, Lena Dunham, and more have portrayed sickness in literature—and why we’re still struggling to put physical suffering into words: newyorkermag.visitlink.me/td…