Rundell takes Baillie Gifford crown for 'sparkling' Donne insight

Katherine Rundell has won the £50,000 Baillie Gifford Prize for Super-Infinite: The Transformations of John Donne (Faber), her "exquisitely rendered" celebration of the life and work of the Elizabethan poet.

The winner was announced this evening (Thursday 17th November) at a ceremony at The Science Museum in London. Rundell is a Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, where she works on Renaissance literature. Her bestselling books for children have been translated into more than 30 languages and have won multiple awards. She has recently published The Golden Mole (Faber) and has written for, among others, the London Review of Books, the Times Literary Supplement, the New York Review of Books and the New York Times.

Super-Infinite: The Transformations of John Donne gives readers a window into the little known myriad lives the poet John Donne lived. Donne was a scholar of law, a sea adventurer, an MP, a priest, the Dean of St Paul’s Cathedral, and widely recognised as one of the greatest love poets in the history of the English language.

The decision was unanimous among the judges, who included writer and associate editor of The Bookseller, Caroline Sanderson (chair); writer and science journalist, Laura Spinney; critic and writer for the Observer, Rachel Cooke; BBC journalist and presenter, Clive Myrie; author and New Yorker writer, Samanth Subramanian; and critic and broadcaster, Georgina Godwin. Their selection was made from 362 books published between 1st November 2021 and 31st October 2022.

"Super-Infinite, Katherine Rundell’s glorious celebration of the life and work of the poet John Donne is our unanimous winner of the 2022 Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction," Sanderson said. "Exquisitely rendered, its passion, playfulness and sparkling prose seduced all of us. Rundell makes an irresistible case for Donne’s work to be widely read 400 years later, for all the electric joy and love it expresses. And in so doing, she gives us a myriad reasons why poetry – why the arts – matter."

Peter Singlehurst, partner at Baillie Gifford, said: "Every year it is a joy to be presented with an outstanding list of the very best of non-fiction writing available in the UK, and this year is no exception. Congratulations to Katherine Rundell for her eloquent insight into the remarkable character that was John Donne. And to all the shortlisted authors, for their extraordinary and powerful books."

The book saw off competition from a shortlist featuring Caroline Elkins’ Legacy of Violence: A History of the British Empire (The Bodley Head), The Escape Artist: The Man Who Broke Out of Auschwitz to Warn the World (John Murray Press) by Jonathan Freedland, Sally Hayden’s My Fourth Time, We Drowned: Seeking Refuge on the World’s Deadliest Migration Route (4th Estate), The Restless Republic: Britain Without a Crown (William Collins) by Anna Keay and Polly Morland’s A Fortunate Woman: A Country Doctor’s Story (Picador).