The Women’s Prize for Non-Fiction has announced its 2025 shortlist. The 16 works longlisted in February have been whittled down to six writers including Swedish singer Neneh Cherry, British-Chinese MP Yuan Yang and British physician Rachel Clarke.
Foreign policy expert Chloe Dalton, historian Clare Mulley, and marine biologist Helen Scales are also shortlisted for the £30,000 (€35,900) prize. From the initial shortlist that featured five non-British writers, only one remains: Neneh Cherry.
It’s the second edition of the Non-Fiction prize after it was launched in 2024 to celebrate books released in 2023. The sister prize to the Women’s Prize for Fiction, Canadian author Naomi Klein was the first recipient of the non-fiction prize for "Doppelganger", her critique of political polarization through the conceit of being regularly mistaken for Naomi Wolff.
This year’s shortlist covers a breadth of topics from history, science and nature, to current affairs and memoir.
“It’s an absolute pleasure to announce six books on our 2025 shortlist from across genres, that are united by an unforgettable voice, rigour, and unique insight,” Kavita Puri, judging chair said.
“Included in our list are narratives that honour the natural world and its bond with humanity, meticulously researched stories of women challenging power, and books that illuminate complex subjects with authority, nuance and originality,” Puri continued.
Cherry was shortlisted for her deeply affecting memoir, "A Thousand Threads", which traces her musical career and life through the emotional highs and lows that shaped them, while Yang was chosen for her intimate portrait of four Chinese women in "Private Revolutions".
"The Story of a Heart" is the latest work from Rachel Clarke, the doctor who wrote "Breathtaking", the memoir of her time in the NHS during the first wave of Covid-19. Her latest explains the history of heart surgery through the story of two children connected by a heart transplant.
Longlisted books that didn’t make the shortlist include American Pulitzer Prize winner Anne Applebaum’s "Autocracy, Inc.: The Dictators Who Want to Run the World" which tackles the democratic threats of kleptocratic authoritarianism.
The award is open globally to any books by female writers published in the UK between 1 April 2024 and 31 March 2025.
Alongside Puri, the panel of judges includes writers Dr Leah Broad, Elizabeth Buchan, Dr Elizabeth-Jane Burnett and Emma Gannon.
The non-fiction prize was founded after a survey revealed that only 35.5% of books awarded a non-fiction prize in the past decade were written by women, across seven UK non-fiction prizes. They also determined that, as of 2022, just 26.5% of non-fiction books by female writers were reviewed in national newspapers.
Shortlist for the Women’s Prize for Non-Fiction 2025:
- "A Thousand Threads" by Neneh Cherry
- "The Story of a Heart" by Rachel Clarke
- "Raising Hare" by Chloe Dalton
- "Agent Zo: The Untold Story of Courageous WW2 Resistance Fighter Elżbieta Zawacka" by Clare Mulley
- "What the Wild Sea Can Be: The Future of the World’s Ocean" by Helen Scales
- "Private Revolutions: Coming of Age in a New China" by Yuan Yang
