Here’s the longlist for the 2023 Baillie Gifford Prize for Nonfiction.
Today, the judges for the Baillie Gifford Prize for Nonfiction—which celebrates the best in nonfiction writing—announced the 13 books on their 2023 longlist.
“Given the wealth of options on offer, getting to a longlist was never going to be easy. And indeed, our judging discussions were intense and rigorous—and also enjoyable and highly stimulating,” said Frederick Studemann, chair of judges, in a press release. “I’m delighted that the resulting longlist spans a wide range of subjects and genres—from history and science to technology and geopolitics along with a flash of swashbuckling adventure. The books on the longlist share an ability to communicate lucidly and engage with readers in an intelligent and relevant way.”
The shortlist will be announced on October 8 at Cheltenham Literature Festival, and the winner will be celebrated at a ceremony at the Science Museum on November 16. The winner will take home £50,000; as part of the 25th anniversary celebrations for the prize, each shortlisted author will receive £5,000, up from previous years’ award of £1,000.
Daron Acemoglu (Turkish-American) and Simon Johnson (British-American), Power and Progress: Our Thousand-Year Struggle Over Technology and Prosperity
(Basic Books, John Murray Press UK, Hachette UK)
Hannah Barnes (British), Time to Think: The Inside Story of the Collapse of the Tavistock’s Gender Service for Children
(Swift Press)
Tania Branigan (British), Red Memory: Living, Remembering and Forgetting China’s Cultural Revolution
(Faber & Faber)
Christopher Clark (Australian), Revolutionary Spring: Fighting for a New World 1848-1849
(Allen Lane, Penguin Random House)
Jeremy Eichler (American), Time’s Echo: The Second World War, The Holocaust, and The Music of Remembrance
(Faber & Faber)
David Grann (American), The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder
(Simon & Schuster)
Jennifer Homans (American), Mr. B: George Balanchine’s Twentieth Century
(Granta Books, Granta)
Katja Hoyer (German), Beyond the Wall: East Germany, 1949-1990
(Allen Lane, Penguin Press)
Tiya Miles (American), All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley’s Sack, a Black Family Keepsake
(Profile Books)
Siddhartha Mukherjee (Indian-American), The Song of the Cell: An Exploration of Medicine and the New Human
(The Bodley Head, Vintage, Penguin Random House UK)
Nathan Thrall (American), A Day in the Life of Abed Salama: A Palestine Story
(Allen Lane, Penguin Press)
Chris van Tulleken (British), Ultra Processed People: Why Do We All Eat Stuff That Isn’t Food … and Why Can’t We Stop?
(Cornerstone, Penguin Random House)
John Vaillant (American-Canadian), Fire Weather: A True Story from a Hotter World
(Sceptre, Hodder & Stoughton)
