The Women’s Prize for Non-Fiction – the inaugural international celebration of women’s non-fiction writing – today (27 March) unveils the shortlist for its 2024 Prize. The six books cover a broad range of subjects: from life writing, religion, art and history, to AI, social media and online politics. What unites them is an originality of voice and an ability to turn complex ideas and personal trauma into inventive, compelling and immersive prose.
The shortlist
- Thunderclap: A Memoir of Art and Life and Sudden Death by Laura Cumming
- 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
- How to Say Babylon: A Jamaican Memoir by Safiya Sinclair
The 2024 shortlist takes readers to new places and introduces new perspectives, offering an alternative lens through which we can examine our past, present and impending future. Revelatory stories that uncover the voices of the dispossessed, sit alongside personal testaments of oppression that reveal resilience and courage. There are also works of groundbreaking investigative journalism that challenge the systems that govern us, alongside visionary accounts that pay tribute to the liberating potential of literature and art.
The shortlist represents writers from America (Tiya Miles), Canada (Naomi Klein) and Jamaica (Safiya Sinclair), with half the list from the UK (Laura Cumming, Noreen Masud and Madhumita Murgia).
The judges
Chair of judges Professor Suzannah Lipscomb says:
Our magnificent shortlist is made up of six powerful, impressive books that are characterised by the brilliance and beauty of their writing and which each offer a unique, original perspective. The readers of these books will never see the world – be it through art, history, landscape, politics, religion or technology – the same again.
Professor Lipscomb is joined on the judging panel by fair fashion campaigner Venetia La Manna; academic, author and consultant Professor Nicola Rollock; biographer and journalist Anne Sebba; and author and 2018 winner of the Women’s Prize for Fiction Kamila Shamsie.
The judges narrowed down this shortlist to six books from a longlist of 16. The 2024 Women’s Prize for Non-Fiction will be awarded on Thursday 13 June 2024 at the Women’s Prize Trust’s summer party in central London. The winner will receive a cheque for £30,000 and a limited-edition artwork known as the ‘Charlotte’, both gifted by the Charlotte Aitken Trust.
More information can be found on the Women’s Prizes website here.
Get involved
If you work in a library or workplace and would like to promote the shortlist, you can download a free digital pack from our shop.
What do you think of the 2024 shortlisted titles? Which have you read and what will be added to your TBR pile? Add your comments below, or click any title above to leave a review.
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Keep up with all the latest news on the Women’s Prize website.
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