Arundhati Roy, Lyse Doucet and Judith Mackrell are among the many writers shortlisted for this yr’s Women’s prize for nonfiction.
Jane Rogoyska, Ece Temelkuran and Daisy Fancourt are additionally in competition for the £30,000 prize, launched in 2024 to deal with the persistent gender imbalance in UK nonfiction prize winners.
Booker prize-winning novelist and political activist Roy has been chosen for her memoir, Mother Mary Comes to Me, an exploration of id, motherhood and the making of a author, which Amit Chaudhuri described as “utterly absorbing” in his Guardian review.
BBC chief worldwide correspondent Doucet is recognised for The Finest Hotel in Kabul, a folks’s historical past of Afghanistan informed by means of the shifting fortunes of the InterContinental resort within the capital, praised in the Guardian as “witty, observant and sometimes heartbreaking”.
Along an analogous theme, Rogoyska’s Hotel Exile appears to be like on the historical past of the Hotel Lutetia in Paris, which was used because the headquarters of the German army intelligence service, the Abwehr, throughout the second world conflict.
The Women’s prize introduced the shortlist alongside new knowledge on gender imbalances within the nonfiction market. Although feminine authors are rising market share in what the prize calls “authoritative” genres – together with widespread science (rising from 11% in 2023 to 22% in 2025) and philosophy (from 5% to 10%) – males proceed to dominate most classes, together with enterprise and administration (93%), sport (90%) and politics (82%).
Thangam Debbonaire, chair of judges, stated the shortlist showcased “six exceptional books and six hugely talented writers, and offers readers collectively a timely and timeless interrogation of our world today”.
“These books are an urgent antidote to mis- and disinformation, written with high standards of scholarship. They offer rich and original insights in what often feels like a fragmented and uncertain world,” she added.
Mackrell’s Artists, Siblings, Visionaries is a twin biography of outstanding British sibling artists Gwen and Augustus John, counseled for its “novelistic sensibility” in the Guardian.
Also on the shortlist is Temelkuran for her guide Nation of Strangers, on exile, migration and belonging, and the phantasm of geopolitical and international stability. Rounding off the checklist is Fancourt’s Art Cure, about how the humanities can enhance our well being, wellbeing and longevity.
The creation of the prize was prompted by analysis which discovered that solely 35.5% of winners throughout seven main UK nonfiction awards over the earlier decade have been ladies.
Along with the six shortlisted books, titles longlisted for this yr’s prize have been Daughters of the Bamboo Grove by Barbara Demick; Don’t Let It Break You, Honey by Jenny Evans; With the Law on Our Side by Lady Hale; To Be Young, Gifted and Black by Kadiatu Kanneh-Mason; Ask Me How It Works: Love in an Open Marriage by Deepa Paul; Death of an Ordinary Man by Sarah Perry; The Genius of Trees by Harriet Rix; Finding Albion by Zakia Sewell; To Exist As I Am by Grace Spence Green; and Indignity: A Life Reimagined by Lea Ypi.
Last year’s prize went to Dr Rachel Clarke for The Story of a Heart, whereas the inaugural winner was Naomi Klein for Doppelganger. The winner might be revealed alongside the winner of the Women’s prize for fiction on 11 June. The profitable writer will obtain £30,000 and a limited-edition paintings often called the Charlotte.
Alongside Debbonaire, the judging panel consists of Roma Agrawal, engineer, writer and broadcaster; Nicola Elliott, founding father of Neom Wellbeing; Nina Stibbe, novelist and memoirist; and Nicola Williams, crown courtroom decide and thriller writer.
To browse all books within the 2026 Women’s prize for nonfiction shortlist, go to guardianbookshop.com. Delivery costs might apply.
