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Looking back on 25 years of the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction.
In 1998, Stuart Proffitt, the publishing director at Penguin Press, and Dotti Irving, a leading PR executive, launched an award for non-fiction books that they hoped might eventually equal the Booker Prize in recognition and prestige. Known as the Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-fiction, the first award was presented at London’s Banqueting House in 1999 to Antony Beevor for his book Stalingrad.
Each year since then, a group of independent judges, selected afresh for each award, has grappled with an ever expanding number of entries — now numbering in the hundreds — to produce a long list of 12 titles, a shortlist of six and, in November, a single winning book. In selecting that winner, they assess the originality, quality of writing and impact on the reader of each book.
For 25 years, more than 125 hardworking and highly distinguished judges, among them writers, critics, academics, literary editors, comedians, film producers, actors, scientists, activists and advocates, have had a panoramic view of non-fiction publishing. They have recognised works of current affairs, history, politics, science, sport, travel, biography, autobiography and the arts. But throughout, the aim has been the same: to reward the very best in non-fiction writing, bringing the finest reflection on the world to new readers.
Though our aims are the same, our name has changed. In 2016, after support from generous anonymous philanthropists, followed by a fruitful partnership with the BBC, the prize was renamed The Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-fiction, after the Edinburgh-based investment house Baillie Gifford took on the sponsorship. Thanks to Baillie Gifford’s support, it has gone from strength to strength and is widely recognised as Britain’s preeminent non-fiction book prize.
I was appointed director of the prize — when it was still called The Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-fiction — in 2015, after several years on the prize’s steering committee. My first job was to secure new sponsorship, as the prize’s anonymous benefactor had come to the end of their invaluable three-year commitment.
We had some reserves in the bank, and were helped mightily by the support of the Blavatnik Family Foundation, which stepped in to sponsor our presentation dinner. The Foundation has been a hugely generous and engaged supporter of our dinner and our podcast ever since.
A perceptible difference is emerging in quality non-fiction written by US and UK-based authors
That left the matter of the main sponsor. I went to see the late George Weidenfeld, then aged 95, in his flat in Battersea. George had always been kind to me when I worked for his imprint in the late 1990s and, as one of the best connected people in Britain, I knew he would have invaluable suggestions.
After some very agreeable chat, he closed his eyes, and offered me the following disconcerting advice: “Get ready to kiss a lot of frogs”.
We did have other potential sponsors in the end, but my fervent hope was that the Edinburgh-based investment house Baillie Gifford might want to support the Prize. I was happy when it offered sponsorship of the prize beginning in 2016, and it took our board a matter of moments to agree to grant Baillie Gifford naming rights.
The company was, and continues to be, the leading supporter of literary festivals across the country and its cultured, supportive, long-term approach to what we are trying to do has completely transformed the prize, and I think made a major impact on the general landscape of non-fiction writing in the UK. Then, of course, there are the books: hundreds of marvellous titles, spanning every imaginable subject.
Although my role is administrative, I have had the privilege of watching our independent judges at work. When I first took stewardship of the prize in 2015, just over a quarter of the entries were written by women. Last year, in 2022, the majority of the submissions were authored by women, who also comprised five out of the six shortlist titles and the winner, Katherine Rundell, for her book Super-Infinite. The same thing happened in 2019 when Hallie Rubenhold won with The Five. These days it’s not unusual, thanks to the support of Waterstones in particular, for Baillie Gifford Prize finalists to become bestsellers — there were three shortlistees in the Times paperback non-fiction charts last week, placed 1, 3 and 7 — while the winner now enjoys an uplift in sales of many hundreds of per cent. To celebrate our Winner of Winners Award this year, Waterstones has promoted all of the previous 24 victorious titles.
The judges have always gravitated towards that near-impossible-to-achieve combination of highly original subject matter and formidable literary quality. But it’s clear, from their choices over the past few years, that a perceptible difference is emerging in quality non-fiction written by US and UK-based authors. The American authors recognised by the prize embody what I think of as the triumph of the New Yorker style: brilliant, pellucid prose that is a superb vehicle for telling complex long-form stories.
Patrick Radden Keefe’s recent winner, Empire of Pain, is a perfect example of this. Alongside this book are those written by British finalists, exemplified by two recent winners, Katherine Rundell and Craig Brown, whose books are also beautifully written, but are more formally adventurous, even avant-garde. There is a playfulness to these writers that I think is absent from the work of the more serious books made in America.
Thanks to its sponsors, and the hard work of our comms team at FOUR, the prize has gone from strength to strength. I can’t wait to see what the judges have chosen this year.