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    Here’s the shortlist for the 2021 Baillie Gifford Prize for Nonfiction.

    Emily Temple
    By 
    October 15, 2021, 12:27pm

    Today, the Baillie Gifford Prize, the UK’s most prestigious annual prize for nonfiction, announced their 2021 shortlist. “I’m not sure I’ve ever been on a judging panel on which I’ve felt so invigorated and excited by the shortlist as I have on this Baillie Gifford Prize panel,” said Andrew Holgate, this year’s chair of judges. “Every one of these books is an enveloping read. There’s attack here, deep learning, challenge, keen analysis and revelation, but above all, there is outstanding storytelling, and deep pleasure to be had in reading all six of the books on this list.”

    The winning writer, who will take home £50,000, will be announced on Tuesday, November 16. Until then, here’s the shortlist:

    Cal Flyn, Islands of Abandonment: Life in the Post-Human Landscape
    Harald Jähner, translated by Shaun Whiteside, Aftermath: Life in the Fallout of the Third Reich, 1945–1955
    Patrick Radden Keefe, Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty
    Kei Miller, Things I Have Withheld
    John Preston, Fall: The Mystery of Robert Maxwell
    Lea Ypi, Free: Coming of Age at the End of History

    Cal Flyn Harald Jähner John Preston Kei Miller Lea Ypi literary prizes Patrick Radden Keefe shortlists The Baillie Gifford Prize

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