The Buffalo Stance singer Neneh Cherry, Labour MP Yuan Yang and the doctor Rachel Clarke have been shortlisted for this year’s Women’s prize for nonfiction.
Foreign policy expert Chloe Dalton, marine biologist Helen Scales and biographer Clare Mulley also remain in contention for the £30,000 prize.
A Thousand Threads by Neneh Cherry (Vintage)
The Story of a Heart by Rachel Clarke (Abacus)
Raising Hare by Chloe Dalton (Canongate)
Agent Zo by Clare Mulley (Weidenfeld)
What the Wild Sea Can Be by Helen Scales (Atlantic)
Private Revolutions by Yuan Yang (Bloomsbury)
“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,” said judging chair and journalist Kavita Puri.
Swedish musician Cherry was shortlisted for her memoir A Thousand Threads. “Hers is a vivid tale of love, family, chaos and a creative spirit passed through the generations,” wrote Fiona Sturges of the audiobook version in the Guardian.
Yang was chosen for Private Revolutions, her portrait of modern China told through the lives of four young women. Yang “has written an engrossing new book that meticulously reports on a country in the throes of change”, wrote Mythili Rao in a Guardian review.
The winner of the prize will be announced on 12 June along with the winner of its sister award, the Women’s prize for fiction.
The nonfiction counterpart was announced in 2023 after research found that only 35.5% of books awarded a nonfiction prize over the prior decade were written by women, across seven UK nonfiction prizes. The prize’s inaugural award went to Naomi Klein for her book Doppelganger.
Clarke was shortlisted this year for The Story of a Heart, in which she sets the story of two children connected by a heart transplant against the history of heart surgery. “While there is much to be gleaned here about the minutiae of medical inventions and procedures, Clarke never loses sight of the human impact,” wrote Sturges in her Guardian review of the book.
Dalton, who spent more than a decade working in parliament and the Foreign Office, was picked for her debut book Raising Hare, about rescuing a leveret during the pandemic. “This is a sustained and patient attempt to cross the species abyss, and to see the world through the hare’s eyes,” wrote Edward Posnett in the Guardian. “It possesses a dream-like quality, and often reads as a fable of metamorphosis.”
The shortlist is completed by Scales’ What the Wild Sea Can Be, about the future of the ocean, and Mulley’s Agent Zo, about Polish second world war resistance fighter Elżbieta Zawacka.
“These books will stay with you long after they have been read, for their outstanding prose, craftsmanship and what they reveal about the human condition and our world,” said Puri.
Along with the six shortlisted books, titles longlisted for this year’s prize were Autocracy, Inc. by Anne Applebaum, Embers of the Hands by Eleanor Barraclough, The Eagle and the Hart by Helen Castor, Ootlin by Jenni Fagan, Why Fish Don’t Exist by Lulu Miller, By the Fire We Carry by Rebecca Nagle, Wild Thing by Sue Prideaux, The Peepshow by Kate Summerscale, Sister in Law by Harriet Wistrich and Tracker by Alexis Wright.
Puri whittled down the longlist with fellow judges Leah Broad, Elizabeth Buchan, Elizabeth-Jane Burnett and Emma Gannon. “It was such a joy to embrace such an eclectic mix of narratives by such insightful women writers,” said Puri.
This year’s prize was open to books published in the UK between 1 April 2024 and 31 March 2025. The prize is sponsored by online genealogy service Findmypast, and says it is actively seeking a second sponsor.
• To browse all of the books on the Women’s prize for nonfiction 2025 shortlist visit guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply.
