Only one UK author features on the six-strong shortlist for the Baillie Gifford Prize For Non-Fiction’s winner of winners award.
The annual literary prize is marking its 25th anniversary by selecting the best of its 24 previous winners – with the eventual champion receiving £25,000.
Craig Brown’s One Two Three Four: The Beatles In Time, which won the annual prize in 2020, is the single book by a UK writer to make the shortlist.
The list features three books by Americans – Nothing To Envy: Real Lives In North Korea by Barbara Demick, 1599: A Year In The Life Of William Shakespeare by James Shapiro, and Empire Of Pain: The Secret History Of The Sackler Dynasty by Patrick Radden Keefe.
The other two spaces go to Canadian writers, with Margaret Macmillan’s Paris 1919: Six Months That Changed The World and Wade Davis’ Into The Silence: The Great War, Mallory And The Conquest Of Everest making the cut.
Half the shortlisted works, which span 18 years with winners from 2002 to 2020, focus on British figures, from The Beatles to William Shakespeare and mountaineer George Mallory.
The annual competition is usually open to living authors of any nationality whose work is published in the UK in English.
Speaking during a press briefing, journalist Jason Cowley, chair of the judges, said the “family resemblance” among the shortlisted books was “formal innovation”.
“All of these books in different ways are doing interesting things with form – challenging form, subverting form, reinventing established forms,” he added.
“And that in particular appealed to me but it also appealed to the other judges.
“I also think the books are very good at conveying what Hilary Mantel called the atmospheric pressure of the times, or Orwell called the social atmosphere of a country.”
Cowley said the scarcity of UK authors was a “quirk of the taste” of the judging panel, which also features academic and critic Shahidha Bari, Professor Sarah Churchwell and biographer and critic Frances Wilson.
“And actually, we hadn’t considered the nationality of the authors until we reached the conclusion,” he added.
“It was only then that it occurred to us that Craig was the only British writer on our list. Others came very, very close, of course.”
The shortlist also only features two books written by women but prize director Toby Mundy said this did not reflect the improvements the prize had made in recent years, with some 40% of the winners in the last decade having been written by women.
He said: “We are a victim of our own longevity and success. If you view our statistics over a 25 year, quarter century window, you can draw one inference.
“But if you look at the story of the last seven to 10 years, I think the prize is a very representational award.
“And I think the evidence is there in the shortlist and the judges and the prizes that have been bestowed.”
The winner will be announced on April 27 at an event at the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh.
