The Women’s Prize for Non-Fiction is a prize for

non-fiction Non-fiction (or nonfiction) is any document or content (media), media content that attempts, in good faith, to convey information only about the real life, real world, rather than being grounded in imagination. Non-fiction typically aims to pre ...

writing by women, a sister prize to the

Women's Prize for Fiction The Women's Prize for Fiction (previously with sponsor names Orange Prize for Fiction (1996–2006 and 2009–2012), Orange Broadband Prize for Fiction (2007–08) and Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction (2014–2017) is one of the United Kingdom's ...

. It was announced in February 2023 and was first awarded in 2024, for books published in 2023. Its main prize of £30,000 will be funded for three years by the

Charlotte Aitken Trust Gillon Reid Aitken (29 March 1938 – 28 October 2016) was an English literary agent and founder of the agency Aitken Alexander Associates. He was born in Calcutta, India, and spent his early years in Darjeeling, before attending boarding-schoo ...

, and the winner will also receive a statuette named the Charlotte. It was announced in June 2023 that the inaugural sponsor of the prize would be the family tree company

Findmypast Findmypast is a UK-based online genealogy service owned, since 2007, by British company DC Thomson. The website hosts billions of searchable records of census, directory and historical record information. It originated in 1965 when a group of ge ...

Kate Mosse Katherine Louise Mosse (born 1961) is a British novelist, non-fiction and short story writer and broadcaster. She is best known for her 2005 novel ''Labyrinth'', which has been translated into more than 37 languages. She co-founded in 1996 th ...

, announcing the launch of the prize, said it was "not about taking the spotlight away from the brilliant male writers, it's about adding the women in". The prize entry criteria state that: "Any woman writing in English – whatever her nationality, country of residence, age or subject matter – is eligible. Books must be published in the United Kingdom between 1 April in the year the Prize calls for entries, and 31 March the following year, when the Prize is announced. Books from all narrative non-fiction categories intended for general readership, commonly known as ‘trade non-fiction’, are encouraged, and the judging panel considers the titles submitted using the guiding tenets of excellence, originality and accessibility." The 2024 judges were historian

Suzannah Lipscomb Suzannah Rebecca Gabriella Lipscomb (born 7 December 1978)
, Library of Congress Name Authority File is a Britis ...

(chair), 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

Kamila Shamsie. The first longlist for the Women's Prize for Non-Fiction, of 16 titles, was announced on 15 February 2024. ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...

'' noted that the subject matter of the longlisted books included "Capitalism, artificial intelligence, Renaissance history and motherhood". The shortlist was announced on 27 March 2024 and the winner on 13 June 2024. The 2025 judges are journalist, author & broadcaster

Kavita Puri Kavita Puri is a British journalist, radio broadcaster, and author. Her 2019 book, '' Partition Voices: Untold British Stories'', is based on her award-winning BBC Radio 4 documentary series of the same name. She appeared on the podcast The Lite ...

(chair), writer & broadcaster Leah Broad, novelist & critic

Elizabeth Buchan Elizabeth Buchan, née Oakleigh-Walker (born 21 May 1948) is a British writer of non-fiction and fiction books since 1985. In 1994, her novel ''Consider the Lily'' won the Romantic Novel of the Year Award by the Romantic Novelists' Association, ...

, writer & environmental academic Dr Elizabeth-Jane Burnett, and author of the newsletter ''The Hyphen'', Emma Gannon. The 2025 longlist of 16 titles was announced in February 2025; the announcement said that "readers will find agenda-setting reportage on contemporary issues alongside revisionist histories and myth-busting biographies; memoirs of self-determination and intimate narratives that shine a light on ordinary people combine with real-life criminal cases, notorious and forgotten, whilst a handful of the books defy genre-classification, weaving multiple disciplines into one compelling narrative work."

Winners and shortlisted writers

References

External links

*{{official website, https://womensprize.com/prizes/womens-prize-for-non-fiction/ Literary awards honoring women Non-fiction literary awards