Key dates for the Baillie Gifford Prize 2021

• Longlist to be announced on Thursday 9 September
• Shortlist to be announced on Friday 15 October
• Winner of 2020 prize will be announced on Tuesday 16 November

The longlist for the 2021 Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction award will be announced on Thursday 9 September followed by the shortlist announcement on Friday 15 October. The winner will be announced on Tuesday 16 November at an award ceremony at the Science Museum generously supported by the Blavatnik Foundation.  This winner announcement will also be livestreamed across the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction social channels.

This year’s chair of judges is Sunday Times literary editor Andrew Holgate.  Our chair is joined by award winning novelist Sara Collins, the physicist, oceanographer, writer and broadcaster Dr Helen Czerski, the biographer and critic Kathryn Hughes, author and TV and radio presenter Johny Pitts, and historian and writer Dominic Sandbrook.

The prize aims to recognise and reward the best of non-fiction and is open to authors of any nationality. It covers all non-fiction in the areas of current affairs, history, politics, science, sport, travel, biography, autobiography and the arts.

Last year’s winner was Craig Brown for One Two Three Four: The Beatles in Time, which in paperback went on to become a Waterstones Book of the Month.