The prestigious Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction has revealed the six authors shortlisted for the 2026 Prize.
The shortlist is: Nicholas Boggs, Anand Gopal, Patrick Radden Keefe, Edmund Richardson, Matthew Sweet and Andrea Wulf have been
The Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction is widely recognised as the world’s most prestigious international award for literary non-fiction that is open to books on any subject and to writers of any nationality.
Since 1999 it has named the best non-fiction book of the year.
The winning author receives £50,000.
The shortlist of six books were chosen by this year’s judging panel: broadcaster and arts journalist Kirsty Lang (chair); Waterstones head of books Bea Carvalho; writer and cultural historian Tiffany Jenkins; The Spectator literary editor Sam Leith; editor and reporter Ravi Mattu; novelist and storyteller Elif Shafak.
Their selection was made from over 350 eligible books published between November 1, 2025, and 31 October 2026.
The titles on this year’s shortlist are:
Baldwin: A Love Story, (Bloomsbury Circus, Bloomsbury Publishing) Nicholas Boggs (American)
Days of Love and Rage: A Story of Revolution (Pluto Press) Anand Gopal (American)
London Falling: A Mysterious Death in a Gilded City and a Family’s Search for Truth (Picador, Pan Macmillan) Patrick Radden Keefe (American)
Alexander: God, King, Man (Bloomsbury Publishing) Edmund Richardson (British)
The Great Dictator: A Life of Barbara Cartland (Hodder & Stoughton) Matthew Sweet (British)
The Traveller: The Revolutionary Life of George Forster and his Search for Humanity (Allen Lane, Penguin Press) Andrea Wulf (German)
Prize chair Kirsty Lang said: “This is a charismatic shortlist which I hope will inspire more people to read non-fiction.
“There is something for everyone: a romantic novelist, a civil rights activist, an eighteenth-century explorer, an ancient king, the Syrian revolution told from the ground up, and a dark portrait of contemporary London.”
Two authors are recognised by the prize for a second time: Patrick Radden Keefe (winner in 2021) and Andrea Wulf (longlisted in 2008).
In London Falling: A Mysterious Death in a Gilded City and a Family’s Search for Truth, Keefe investigates the death of Zac Brettler, a London teenager who was leading a secret life posing as the son of a wealthy Russian oligarch.
In The Traveller: The Revolutionary Life of George Forster and his Search for Humanity, Wulf brings to life the radical eighteenth-century naturalist and explorer George Forster.
Nicholas Boggs’ Baldwin: A Love Story offers the first major biography of James Baldwin in three decades. Drawing on newly uncovered archival materials, original research and interviews, he explores the intimate and artistic relationships that helped shape Baldwin’s life and work, revealing new dimensions of one of the twentieth century’s most influential writers.
Drawing on unprecedented access to archival materials and first-hand accounts, Matthew Sweet’s The Great Dictator: A Life of Barbara Cartland reveals the woman behind the powder and mascara.
Edmund Richardson’s Alexander: God, King, Man retells the life of Alexander the Great, from inheriting a crumbling kingdom to becoming a living god.
Finally, in Days of Love and Rage: A Story of Revolution, Anand Gopal immerses readers in Manbij, Syria, during the 2011 revolution.