Richard Flanagan becomes the first author to win both the Baillie Gifford Prize and The Booker

Richard Flanagan has won the £50,000 Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction 2024 for Question 7 (‎Chatto & Windus). The author achieved “an unprecedented double”, having also won the Booker Prize a decade ago for The Narrow Road to the Deep North (Chatto & Windus).

The chair of the judges, Isabel Hilton, announced the winner at a ceremony hosted at BMA House in London, UK, today (19th November), supported by The Blavatnik Family Foundation. She described the book as “an astonishingly accomplished meditation on memory, history, trauma, love and death – and an intricately woven exploration of the chains of consequence that frame a life".

The book opens at a “love hotel” by Japan’s Inland Sea and ends by a river in Tasmania, tracing “life’s chain reaction: from past to present to future”.

“Question 7 is an astonishingly accomplished meditation on memory, history, trauma, love and death – and an intricately woven exploration of the chains of consequence that frame a life,” said Hilton. “In a year rich in remarkable books, Richard Flanagan’s Question 7 spoke to the judges for its outstanding literary qualities and its profound humanity. This compelling memoir ranges from intimate human relations to an unflinching examination of the horrors of the 20th century, reflecting on unanswerable questions that we must keep asking.”

Prize director Toby Mundy added: “In winning the Baillie Gifford Prize 2024 with Question 7, Richard Flanagan has achieved an unprecedented double. No author has ever won both this prize and the Booker Prize for fiction. It is a staggering achievement, which confirms Richard Flanagan as one of the world’s most significant literary writers.”

The Baillie Gifford Prize recognises the best of non-fiction and is open to authors of any nationality. The shortlist also featured titles by Rachel Clarke, Annie Jacobsen, Viet Thanh Nguyen, Sue Prideaux and David Van Reybrouck – whose book Revolusi: Indonesia and the Birth of the Modern World (The Bodley Head) is translated by David Colmer and David McKay – and they will each receive £5,000, bringing the total prize value to £75,000.

The winner was chosen by this year’s judging panel, which included author and investigative journalist Heather Brooke, New Scientist comment and culture editor Alison Flood, Prospect magazine culture editor Peter Hoskin, writer and critic Tomiwa Owolade and author, restaurant critic and journalist Chitra Ramaswamy. Their selection was made from 349 books published between 1 November 2023 and 31 October 2024.

“Congratulations to Richard for his transformative exploration of memory, history, and the moral complexities of life,” added Peter Singlehurst, partner at Baillie Gifford. “And to all the authors who made the shortlist, thank you for your exceptional and impactful works.”

Next week, the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction’s podcast, Read Smart, will release an episode devoted to the winner of the 2024 award, hosted by Georgina Godwin and featuring Flanagan.