The Guardian\u2019s chief culture writer Charlotte Higgins joins American investigative journalist Patrick Radden Keefe and bestselling historian Ben Macintyre on this year\u2019s Baillie Gifford prize longlist.<\/p>\n
Higgins\u2019 book, Ukrainian Lessons: Art in a Time of War<\/a>, examines the role of culture in Ukraine\u2019s resistance to Russia\u2019s invasion, drawing on multiple reporting trips to Ukraine. Keefe, who won the prize in 2021 with Empire of Pain, is listed again for London Falling<\/a>, which tells the story of Zac Brettler, a teenager who fell from a luxury London apartment after having posed as the son of a wealthy Russian oligarch. Macintyre\u2019s Redwood: The Untold Story of the Cold War\u2019s Most Extraordinary Spy, tells the story of a KGB double agent cultivated by MI6 in revolutionary Tehran.<\/p>\n The 13 books on the longlist, selected from submissions published in English in the UK over the past year, range from biography and ancient history to espionage, true crime and international reportage. The prize is widely regarded as the UK\u2019s most prestigious award for nonfiction.<\/p>\n \u201cChairing this prize is like being part of a very well-informed and opinionated book group,\u201d said lead judge Kirsty Lang. \u201cWhittling our choices down to 13 books led to some forthright discussion, but we got there in the end and are very proud of our longlist.\u201d<\/p>\n Quick GuideThe Baillie Gifford prize 2026 longlistShow<\/p>\n Thank you for your feedback.<\/p>\n Biography is a major theme of this year\u2019s list. In Baldwin: A Love Story<\/a>, the first major study of James Baldwin in 30 years, Nicholas Boggs examines Baldwin\u2019s relationships and their influence on his writing, drawing on previously unseen material and interviews.<\/p>\n The life of another literary figure is explored in The Great Dictator<\/a> by Matthew Sweet. Sweet\u2019s account of the romance novelist Barbara Cartland\u2019s career is set against the backdrop of the changing sexual and social politics of her era. Meanwhile, Andrea Wulf\u2019s The Traveller<\/a> examines the largely forgotten 18th-century explorer George Forster, who joined Captain Cook\u2019s second voyage around the world as a teenager.<\/p>\n Contemporary conflicts also loom large. In Days of Love and Rage, Anand Gopal reports from Manbij, Syria, during the revolution, telling the stories of people who helped overthrow a dictatorship. The Bookseller of Kabul author \u00c5sne Seierstad offers an account of contemporary Russia in Never Say War; while Ian Buruma\u2019s Stay Alive: Berlin, 1939\u20131945 <\/a>examines how ordinary people navigated life under the Nazi regime. Ancient history is represented by Edmund Richardson\u2019s Alexander: God, King, Man, a portrait of Alexander the Great.<\/p>\n In The Nord Stream Conspiracy the Wall Street Journal political correspondent Bojan Pancevski probes the sabotage of North Sea gas pipelines. While Murder in Paris \u201968 by Edward Chisholm revisits one of French cinema\u2019s most notorious scandals: the murder of actor Alain Delon\u2019s bodyguard, Stefan Markovi\u0107.<\/p>\n Completing this year\u2019s longlist, Jane Rogoyska\u2019s Hotel Exile<\/a> tells the wartime story of the H\u00f4tel Lutetia in Paris which was transformed from a gathering place for refugee artists, activists and intellectuals into the headquarters of Nazi intelligence.<\/p>\n The longlist was selected by Lang, Waterstones\u2019s head of books Bea Carvalho, writer and cultural historian Tiffany Jenkins, Spectator literary editor Sam Leith, editor and reporter Ravi Mattu and novelist Elif Shafak.<\/p>\n The prize, established as the Samuel Johnson prize in 1999, has been sponsored by Edinburgh-based investment management firm Baillie Gifford since 2016. The company has faced criticism in recent years over its investments in fossil fuels and companies with links to Israel. In 2024, campaign group Fossil Free Books organised boycotts of literary festivals sponsored by the firm, resulting in Baillie Gifford ending its partnerships with nine festivals.<\/a><\/p>\n The winner will receive \u00a350,000, with the shortlist of six announced on 1 October and the winner on 4 November. Last year\u2019s prize was won by Australian writer Helen Garner <\/a>for How to End a Story: Collected Diaries.<\/p>\n