The longlist for the Women’s Prize for Non-Fiction has been revealed, with 16 books in contention for the British award that “celebrates excellence, originality and accessibility in narrative non-fiction written by women.”
Arundhati Roy made the longlist for her memoir Mother Mary Comes to Me, which was a finalist for the Kirkus Prize and has been shortlisted for the National Book Critics Circle Award. Barbara Demick was nominated for Daughters of the Bamboo Grove: From China to America, a True Story of Abduction, Adoption, and Separated Twins, also a National Book Critics Circle Award finalist.
Lyse Doucet was longlisted for The Finest Hotel in Kabul: A People’s History of Afghanistan, alongside Jenny Evans for Don’t Let It Break You, Honey: A Memoir About Saving Yourself; Daisy Fancourt for Art Cure: The Science of How the Arts Save Lives; Lady Hale for With the Law on Our Side: How the Law Works for Everyone and How We Can Make It Work Better; Kadiatu Kanneh-Mason for To Be Young, Gifted and Black: Creativity and Race in the 21st Century; Judith Mackrell for Artists, Siblings, Visionaries: The Lives and Loves of Gwen and Augustus John; and Deepa Paul for Ask Me How It Works: Love in an Open Marriage.
Also making the longlist were Sarah Perry for Death of an Ordinary Man; Harriet Rix for The Genius of Trees: How They Mastered the Elements and Shaped the World; Jane Rogoyska for Hotel Exile: Paris in the Shadow of War; Zakia Sewell for Finding Albion: Myth, Folklore and the Quest for a Hidden Britain; Grace Spence Green for To Exist As I Am: A Doctor’s Notes on Recovery and Radical Acceptance; Ece Temelkuran for Nation of Strangers: Rebuilding Home in the 21st Century; and Lea Ypi for Indignity: A Life Reimagined.
The Women’s Prize for Non-Fiction was first awarded in 2024, to Naomi Klein’s Doppelganger: A Trip Into the Mirror World. The 2025 winner was Rachel Clarke’s The Story of a Heart: Two Families, One Heart, and a Medical Miracle.
The shortlist for this year’s award, which comes with a cash prize of 30,000 British pounds (about $41,000), will be revealed on March 25, with the winner announced on June 11.
