The Biographers International Organization has revealed the 2026 longlist for its Plutarch Award, given annually to an outstanding biography.
Nicholas Boggs made the longlist for Baldwin: A Love Story, his biography of author James Baldwin. The book was a finalist for the Kirkus Prize and the National Book Critics Circle’s John Leonard Prize. Sue Prideaux was nominated for Wild Thing: A Life of Paul Gauguin, the winner of the American Library in Paris Book Award.
Daniel Brook was longlisted for The Einstein of Sex: Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld, Visionary of Weimar Berlin, alongside Kate Culkin for Emerson’s Daughters: Ellen Tucker Emerson, Edith Emerson Forbes, and Their Family Legacy; Ruth Franklin for The Many Lives of Anne Frank; and Howard W. French for The Second Emancipation: Nkrumah, Pan-Africanism, and Global Blackness at High Tide.
Max Perry Mueller made the longlist for Wakara’s America: The Life and Legacy of a Native Founder of the American West, as did Amanda Vaill for Pride and Pleasure: The Schuyler Sisters in an Age of Revolution, Francesca Wade for Gertrude Stein: An Afterlife, and Graham Watson for The Invention of Charlotte Brontë: A New Life.
The Plutarch Award was established in 2013. Previous winners include Hermione Lee for Penelope Fitzgerald: A Life; Caroline Fraser for Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder; and Yepoka Yeebo for Anansi’s Gold: The Man Who Looted the West, Outfoxed Washington, and Swindled the World.
The winner of this year’s prize will be announced at the 2026 BIO Conference, which runs May 28-29 in New York City.
Michael Schaub is a contributing writer.
