The £50,000 Baillie Gifford Prize is the UK’s most prestigious award for nonfiction writing. This year’s longlist features a diverse list of topics. Two former winners are listed – Barbara Demick and , as well as the youngest ever author in prize history to be longlisted – 16-year old activist and autism advocate Dara McAnulty.
The titles on the 2020 longlist are:
- One Two Three Four by Craig Brown
- Labours of Love by Madeleine Bunting
- Dear Life by Rachel Clarke
- The Idea of the Brain by Matthew Cobb
- Eat the Buddha by Barbara Demick
- The Lives of Lucian Freud: FAME 1968- 2011 by William Feaver
- Black Spartacus by Sudhir Hazareesingh
- Our Bodies, Their Battlefield by Christina Lamb
- Diary of a Young Naturalist by Dara McAnulty
- Those Who Forget by Géraldine Schwarz
- Stranger in the Shogun’s City by Amy Stanley
- The Haunting of Alma Fielding by Kate Summerscale
- Square Haunting by Francesca Wade
Chair of judges Martha Kearney comments: “Narrowing more than two hundred books down to a long list has been a Herculean task, made even more challenging by the lockdown. Despite the joys of Zoom, we have managed to agree on thirteen exceptional books which reflect the creative power of 21st century non-fiction from new writers to accomplished authors, spanning war, art, science, history, ghosts and The Beatles.”
The shortlist will be announced on 15 October, with the winner to be revealed on 24 November. Find out more about this year’s longlisted titles on the Baillie Gifford Prize website.
