{"id":1099,"date":"2025-09-04T11:14:06","date_gmt":"2025-09-04T11:14:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/1099\/"},"modified":"2025-09-04T11:14:06","modified_gmt":"2025-09-04T11:14:06","slug":"yiyun-li-and-barbara-demick-among-writers-longlisted-for-baillie-gifford-prize-books","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/1099\/","title":{"rendered":"Yiyun Li and Barbara Demick among writers longlisted for Baillie Gifford prize | Books"},"content":{"rendered":"

Personal stories are a strong focus in this year\u2019s Baillie Gifford prize for nonfiction<\/a> longlist, with Yiyun Li\u2019s memoir about the loss of her two teenage sons by suicide and Barbara Demick\u2019s account of her role reuniting a pair of twins separated in China among those recognised.<\/p>\n

Biographies and narrative histories which explore a recent period from a personal perspective also dominate the longlist of 12 titles \u2013 nine of which were written by journalists, including the Guardian writer Jason Burke and the BBC war correspondent Lyse Doucet. Eight of the authors are British.<\/p>\n

The Revolutionists: The Story of the Extremists Who Hijacked the 1970s by Burke, a veteran foreign correspondent for the Guardian, is up against The Finest Hotel in Kabul: A People\u2019s History of Afghanistan by Doucet, which weaves together the experiences of Afghans who have kept the Hotel Intercontinental running since 1969.<\/p>\n

Judges commended Daughters of the Bamboo Grove by Demick, a previous winner of the prize, for \u201chumanising\u201d the effects of China\u2019s one-child policy by exposing the families torn apart by its implementation. Another longlisted title, How to End a Story: Collected Diaries by the Australian writer Helen Garner, was praised for candidly chronicling the breakdown of a marriage.<\/p>\n

Quick GuideThe Baillie Gifford prize 2025 longlistShow<\/p>\n

The Revolutionists: The Story of the Extremists Who Hijacked the 1970s by\u00a0Jason Burke (Bodley Head)<\/p>\n

Daughters of the Bamboo Grove: China\u2019s Stolen Children and a Story of Separated Twins by\u00a0Barbara Demick (Granta)<\/p>\n

The Finest Hotel in Kabul: A People\u2019s History of Afghanistan by Lyse Doucet (Hutchinson Heinemann)<\/p>\n

How to End a Story: Collected Diaries<\/a> by\u00a0Helen Garner (Weidenfeld & Nicolson)<\/p>\n

The Boundless Deep: Young Tennyson, Science and the Crisis of Belief by\u00a0Richard Holmes (William Collins)<\/p>\n

The Last Days of Budapest: Spies, Nazis, Rescuers and Resistance\u00a01940-1945 by\u00a0Adam LeBor (Bloomsbury)<\/p>\n

John & Paul: A Love Story in Songs<\/a> by Ian Leslie (Faber)<\/p>\n

Things in Nature Merely Grow<\/a> by Yiyun Li (Fourth Estate)<\/p>\n

Captives and Companions: A History of Slavery and the Slave Trade in the Islamic World by Justin Marozzi (Allen Lane)<\/p>\n

Between the Waves: The Hidden History of a Very British Revolution 1945-2016 by\u00a0Tom McTague (Picador)<\/p>\n

Lone Wolf: Walking the Faultlines of Europe by Adam Weymouth (Hutchinson Heinemann)<\/p>\n

Electric Spark: The Enigma of Muriel Spark<\/a> by Frances Wilson (Bloomsbury)<\/p>\n

Thank you for your feedback.<\/p>\n

Things in Nature Merely Grow by Li, a novelist and finalist for the Pulitzer prize, was singled out as \u201cunlike any other book on the list\u201d with \u201cbeautiful\u201d and \u201cextraordinary\u201d writing that led the judges into \u201cthe abyss of personal tragedy\u201d.<\/p>\n

Three biographies \u2013 of Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Muriel Spark and the Beatles \u2013 also feature on the longlist.<\/p>\n

The winner of the prize will receive \u00a350,000, with the other shortlisted authors \u2013 who will be announced on 2 October \u2013 receiving \u00a35,000 each.<\/p>\n

This year\u2019s judging panel included the Times literary editor Robbie Millen, the historian and author Pratinav Anil, the journalist Inaya Folarin Iman, the writer and historian Lucy Hughes-Hallett, the Economist culture journalist Rachel Lloyd and the author and biographer Peter Parker.<\/p>\n

Millen, who was the judging chair, said \u201cvariety\u201d was the common theme of the longlist. \u201cAll the judges were impressed, delighted and relieved by the mind-quickening variety of the books that we read in terms of style, character and subject matter \u2026 All of human life can be found in the pages of these 12 remarkable books,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Judges selected the longlist from more than 350 nonfiction books published between 1 November 2024 and 31 October 2025.<\/p>\n

None of the writers longlisted this year were debut authors. Frances Wilson makes her third appearance on the prize\u2019s longlist for Electric Spark: The Enigma of Muriel Spark, which the judges hailed as a \u201cdazzling biography\u201d of the novelist\u2019s mind and character, alongside twice shortlisted Richard Holmes for The Boundless Deep: Young Tennyson, Science and the Crisis of Belief. This book, which focuses on the poet\u2019s early years and his immersion in scientific thought, is a masterful look at \u201chow poets respond to the faith-quaking challenge of science\u201d, Millen said.<\/p>\n

The third biography on the list, John & Paul: A Love Story in Songs by Ian Leslie, is an account of the love and jealousy between the Beatles which judges found \u201cdeeply entertaining and enjoyable\u201d.<\/p>\n

Europe is a focus for three of the other longlisted authors. Between the Waves: The Hidden History of a Very British Revolution 1945-2016 by New Statesman journalist Tom McTague is a \u201cgripping exploration of Euroscepticism in Britain\u201d, according to the judges. The Last Days of Budapest: Spies, Nazis, Rescuers and Resistance by Adam LeBor \u201cskilfully\u201d recreates life and death in Budapest during the second world war, while Adam Weymouth\u2019s Lone Wolf: Walking the Faultlines of Europe \u2013 which documents an epic walk by a wolf from Slovenia through the Alps to Italy \u2013 was praised by the judges for its discussion of conservation and rewilding.<\/p>\n

The remaining book on the longlist is Captives and Companions, which judges described as a \u201cthoroughly investigated\u201d book on slavery in the Muslim world, by Justin Marozzi, winner of the Royal Society of Literature Ondaatje prize.<\/p>\n

The investment management firm Baillie Gifford has sponsored the prize since 2016. Last year\u2019s winner, Richard Flanagan, delayed accepting the \u00a350,000 prize money for his book Question 7. In his acceptance speech, he said that he would not accept the reward until the fund manager shares a plan to reduce its investment in fossil fuel extraction and increase investments in renewables. \u201cAs each of us is guilty,\u201d the 63-year-old concluded, \u201ceach of us too bears a responsibility to act: a writer, a fund manager.\u201d<\/p>\n

Last year, a campaign by Fossil Free Books (FFB)<\/a> highlighted Baillie Gifford\u2019s investments in businesses connected to fossil fuels and Israel, leading to its sponsorships of nine UK literary festivals coming to an end in June 2024.<\/p>\n

Baillie Gifford continues to sponsor the nonfiction prize, however. Previous winners of the prize have included Antony Beevor, Jonathan Coe, Serhii Plokhy, Hallie Rubenhold and Katherine Rundell.<\/p>\n

Browse all the novels on the Baillie Gifford 2025 longlist at guardianbookshop.com<\/a>. Delivery charges may apply.<\/p>\n

In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans<\/a> can be contacted on freephone 116 123, or email jo@samaritans.org<\/a> or jo@samaritans.ie<\/a>. In the US, you can call or text the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline<\/a> on 988, chat on 988lifeline.org<\/a>, or text HOME<\/a> to 741741 to connect with a crisis counsellor. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline<\/a> is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Personal stories are a strong focus in this year\u2019s Baillie Gifford prize for nonfiction longlist, with Yiyun Li\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1100,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[489,156,111,139,69],"class_list":{"0":"post-1099","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-books","8":"tag-books","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-new-zealand","11":"tag-newzealand","12":"tag-nz"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1099","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1099"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1099\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1100"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1099"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1099"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1099"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}