After 28 years of celebrating outstanding, ambitious, original novels, the charitable trust behind the Women's Prize for Fiction, Women’s Prize Trust has expanded their reach for the first time this year into non-fiction. 2024 marks the first year of the Women’s Prize for Non-Fiction. This new prize has long been the aim of the Women's Prize Trust, a UK charity that creates equitable opportunities for women in the world of books, and was created out of research released in 2023 which revealed that female non-fiction writers are less visible in the UK national media, and less likely to receive acknowledgement in book prizes than their male counterparts. 

This brand new award will be given to a work of narrative non-fiction written in English by a woman and published in the UK between the 1st April 2023 and the 31st March 2024. The prize will celebrate excellence in writing and research as well as strong and original narrative voice and accessibility. The winner will receive a cheque for £30,000 and a limited-edition artwork known as 'The Charlotte' created by Ann Christopher. 

This evening, the very first longlist for this exciting new non-fiction prize has been announced. Writers from all over the English speaking world feature in the 16 strong longlist, with authors hailing from America, Australia, Canada, India, Jamaica, the Philippines and the UK. The books themselves vary in style and genre, from gripping memoirs to innovative new histories, ground-breaking journalism and books that challenge the status quo. 

So without further delay, here is the first Women's Prize for Non-Fiction Longlist:

The Britannias: An Island Quest by Alice Albinia

Vulture Capitalism: Corporate Crimes, Backdoor Bailouts and the Death of Freedom by Grace Blakeley

Eve: How The Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution by Cat Bohannon

Intervals by Marianne Brooker

Shadows at Noon: The South Asian Twentieth Century by Joya Chatterji

Thunderclap: A Memoir of Art and Life and Sudden Death by Laura Cumming

Some People Need Killing: A Memoir of Murder in the Philippines by Patricia Evangelista

Wifedom: Mrs Orwell's Invisible Life by Anna Funder

Matrescence: On the Metamorphosis of Pregnancy, Childbirth and Motherhood by Lucy Jones

Doppelganger: A Trip Into the Mirror World by Naomi Klein

A Flat Place by Noreen Masud

All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley's Sack, a Black Family Keepsake by Tiya Miles

Code-Dependent: Living in the Shadow of AI by Madhumita Murgia

The Dictionary People: The Unsung Heroes who Created the Oxford English Dictionary by Sarah Ogilvie

Young Queens: The Intertwined Lives of Catherine de’ Medici, Elisabeth de Valois and Mary, Queen of Scots by Leah Redmond Chang

How to Say Babylon: A Jamaican Memoir by Safiya Sinclair

Professor Suzannah Lipscomb, Chair of Judges for this year's awards, said 

“Reading for the Women’s Prize for Non-Fiction has been a revelation and a joy. I am very proud to introduce the sensational books that make up the inaugural Longlist. Our selection represents the breadth of women's non-fiction writing: science, history, memoir, technology, literary biography, health, linguistics, investigative journalism, art history, activism, travel-writing and economics. And each author has created a masterpiece that is worthy of your attention. Buy them, borrow them – above all read them – and in so doing you'll be elevating women's voices and female perspectives in a whole range of disciplines and on a whole host of topics.” 

The Women's Prize for Fiction has been held for almost 30 years and during this time the awards and the Women's Prize Trust has helped to change the landscape of women's fiction writing. With the launch of this new non-fiction prize it hopes to provide a similar platform for non-fiction writers. 

The judges will narrow down the 16 books on this longlist to just 6 when they announce the shortlist on the 27th March. The winner will be awarded on Thursday the 13th June at the Women's Prize Trust's summer party in London. 

For more information, visit https://womensprize.com/prizes/womens-prize-for-non-fiction/

@WomensPrize