Six books have been shortlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction, including a new biography of James Baldwin and the latest book by journalist Patrick Radden Keefe.
Finalists were announced Thursday for the prize, which is open to any work of nonfiction published or translated into English in the United Kingdom. The award carries a prize of about $66,500.
This year’s shortlist, drawn from 350 submitted titles, includes Keefe’s London Falling: A Mysterious Death in a Gilded City and Family’s Search for Truth; Nicholas Boggs’s Baldwin: A Love Story; Anand Gopal’s Days of Love and Rage: A Story of Ordinary People Forging a Revolution; Edmund Richardson’s Alexander: God, King, Man; Matthew Sweet’s The Great Dictator: A Life of Barbara Cartland; and Andrea Wulf’s The Traveler: The Revolutionary Life of George Forster and His Search for Humanity.
Five of the six shortlisted books have received Kirkus stars. (The Great Dictator has not yet been published in the United States.) Alexander was praised for pages that “fly by in riveting anecdotes, brief evocative descriptions of places, and striking feats of engineering and logistics.” Baldwin was called a “dynamic portrait that deepens our understanding of a complex artist.” And London Falling, also a finalist for this year’s Kirkus Prize, was called an “exemplary account of naïveté, wealth, and menace, impeccably told by a top-notch journalist.”
The judging panel for the prize includes booksellers, journalists, and authors, including Waterstones’ Bea Carvalho, novelist Elif Shafak, and Spectator literary editor Sam Leith. “It is an eclectic list united by stories of people navigating a world full of conflict as well as hope,” said broadcaster Kirsty Lang, chair of judges. “At a time when many of us are trying to make sense of a complex and frightening world, non-fiction can help us find our way through.”
The winner is scheduled to be announced Nov. 4 at a ceremony in London.
Mark Athitakis is a writer and reviewer in Arizona.
