Neneh Cherry and Jenni Fagan longlisted for 2025 Women’s Prize for Non-Fiction

Neneh Cherry and Jenni Fagan are among the 16 writers longlisted for the 2025 Women’s Prize for Non-Fiction.

The Women’s Prize Trust – the UK charity creating equitable opportunities for women in the world of books – announced the longlist on Wednesday (12th February) for the second year of the award, which is sponsored by ancestry website Findmypast.

Awarded for excellence, originality and accessibility in narrative non-fiction, it runs as a sister prize to the Women’s Prize for Fiction, which this year celebrates its 30th anniversary.

There is a strong Brit contingent with 11 of the 16 nominations coming from British authors, including newly elected MP Yuan Yang, palliative care doctor Rachel Clarke and marine biologist Helen Scales. Six of the authors are debuts. Five of the books are published by Penguin Random House (PRH) with two from Hachette, two from Bloomsbury, one HarperCollins entry and the rest from Independent publishers.

Kavita Puri, chair of judges, said: “Judging the Women’s Prize for Non-Fiction has been a huge privilege, and reading the books submitted has been both enlightening and enriching. My fellow judges and I are very happy with the selection of 16 books on this year’s longlist.

“What unites these diverse titles, that boast so many different disciplines and genres, is the accomplishment of the writing, the originality of the storytelling and the incisiveness of the research. Here are books that provoke debate and discussion, that offer insight into new experiences and perspectives, and that bring overlooked stories back to life and recognition.

“Among this stellar list, there are also reads that expertly steer us through the most pressing issues of our time, show the resilience of the human spirit, alongside others that elucidate the dangers of unchecked power, the consequence of oppression and the need for action and defiance.”

Varying in subject matter, style and genre, readers will find agenda-setting reportage on contemporary issues alongside revisionist histories and myth-busting biographies; insightful memoirs and intimate narratives that shine a light on ordinary people are combined with real-life criminal cases, notorious and forgotten. A handful of the books defy genre-classification, weaving multiple disciplines into one compelling narrative work.

The 2025 longlist includes writing drawn from a range of disciplines, from geopolitics, art, music, natural history and true crime, to law, science, medicine and history.

Puri is joined on the judging panel by the writer and broadcaster Dr Leah Broad, whose work focuses on women’s cultural history; novelist and critic Elizabeth Buchan; writer and environmental academic Dr Elizabeth-Jane Burnett; and author and writer of The Hyphen newsletter on Substack, Emma Gannon.

The judges will narrow down this longlist of 16 books to a shortlist of six, which will be announced on 26th March.

The 2025 Women’s Prize for Non-Fiction will be awarded on 12th June 2025 at the Women’s Prize Trust’s summer party in central London. The winner will receive a cheque for £30,000 and a limited-edition artwork known as the "Charlotte", both gifted by the Charlotte Aitken Trust.

Naomi Klein won last year’s prize for Doppelganger: A Trip into the Mirror World (Penguin), her examination of polarised society.