Baillie Gifford Winner of Winners shortlist revealed

The shortlist for the Baillie Gifford Winner of Winners Award – which celebrates the prize’s 25th anniversary – has been revealed, featuring titles by Craig Brown, Wade Davis and Barbara Demick.

The six-strong shortlist was selected from the previous 24 award winners, with works spanning 18 years of the prize’s history from 2002 to 2020. Originally known as the Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-fiction, the first award was presented in 1999 to Antony Beevor for his book Stalingrad (Viking). The Winner of Winners will receive a £25,000 cash prize. 

This year’s judges were New Statesman editor-in-chief Jason Cowley (chair); academic, critic and broadcaster Shahidha Bari; journalist, author and academic Sarah Churchwell; and biographer and critic Frances Wilson.

Craig Brown – the only British writer on the shortlist – was nominated for his 2020 title One Two Three Four: The Beatles in Time (4th Estate). The Beatles biography was described by the judges as “irreverent and yet profound, biographical and yet fantastical”. Meanwhile Wade Davis was nominated for his book Into the Silence: The Great War, Mallory and the Conquest of Everest (The Bodley Head), which details climber George Mallory’s quest for Mount Everest. Barbara Demick’s Nothing to Envy: Real Lives in North Korea (Granta) also features, and follows the lives of six residents in Chongin, North Korea’s third-largest city.

Also on the shortlist is Patrick Radden Keefe, whose book Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty (Doubleday) was lauded as a “compelling, meticulously researched and deeply reported” analysis of opioid addiction in the US, charted through the rise and fall of the Sackler family. Margaret Macmillan – one of two women on the shortlist – is up for Paris 1919: Six Months That Changed The World (John Murray Press), which the judges said reframes the readers understanding of the Treaty of Versailles. Finally, James Shapiro’s 1599: A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare (Faber & Faber) has made the shortlist, and was praised as a “superbly original” biography of the famed writer.

Katherine Rundell, who won the award most recently for her book Super Infinite: The Transformations of John Donne (Faber & Faber) did not appear on the Winner of Winners shortlist.

Cowley, chair of judges, said of the selection: “We are delighted with the range and quality of our shortlist, which showcases the best of this great prize and features works of high ambition, formal innovation and originality – works of history, narrative-driven reportage, investigative journalism, and literary and cultural biography.”

Waterstones will be celebrating the 25th anniversary with displays of all 24 previous winners. The chain’s non-fiction category manager, Matt Hennessey, said: “From an outstanding list of 24, the judges have selected six titles that encapsulate the breadth of quality non-fiction writing the Baillie Gifford Prize has championed over the past quarter century. They have all proven enduringly popular with our customers and booksellers alike and I am sure this latest accolade will help bring them to an even wider audience.”

The winner of the 25th anniversary prize will be announced on Thursday 27th April at an event held at the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh.