Patrick Radden Keefe, Ben Macintyre and the Guardian’s Charlotte Higgins are among the 13 authors selected for the nonfiction award
The Guardian’s chief culture writer Charlotte Higgins joins American investigative journalist Patrick Radden Keefe and bestselling historian Ben Macintyre on this year’s Baillie Gifford prize longlist.
Higgins’ book, Ukrainian Lessons: Art in a Time of War, examines the role of culture in Ukraine’s resistance to Russia’s 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, 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’s Redwood: The Untold Story of the Cold War’s Most Extraordinary Spy, tells the story of a KGB double agent cultivated by MI6 in revolutionary Tehran.
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’s most prestigious award for nonfiction.
“Chairing this prize is like being part of a very well-informed and opinionated book group,” said lead judge Kirsty Lang. “Whittling 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.”
Baldwin: A Love Story by Nicholas Boggs (Penguin Random House)
Murder in Paris ’68: A True Story of Death and Glamour by Edward Chisholm (Bloomsbury)
The Great Dictator: A Life of Barbara Cartland by Matthew Sweet (Monoray)
The Traveller: The Revolutionary Life of George Forster and his Search for Humanity by Andrea Wulf (Penguin Random House)
Alexander: God, King, Man by Edmund Richardson (Atlantic)
The Nord Stream Conspiracy: The Inside Story of the Explosions That Shook the World by Bojan Pancevski (Penguin Random House)
Days of Love and Rage: A Story of Revolution by Anand Gopal (Bloomsbury)
Ukrainian Lessons: Art in a Time of War by Charlotte Higgins (Penguin Random House)
Redwood: The Untold Story of the Cold War’s Most Extraordinary Spy by Ben Macintyre (Penguin Random House)
London Falling: A Mysterious Death in a Gilded City and a Family’s Search for Truth by Patrick Radden Keefe (Penguin Random House)
