We had the pleasure of covering the announcement of the inaugural Women's Prize for Non-Fiction award last year and we're thrilled once more to see the 2025 longlist announcement. 

The Women's Prize Trust today, 12th February, reveals the second year of the Women's Prize for Non-Fiction, sponsored by findmypast. 

What is the Women's Prize for Non-Fiction?

Running as the sister prize to the globally recognised Women's Prize for Fiction which will be celebrating its 30th anniversary this year, the Non-Fiction Prize is awarded to celebrate excellence, originality and accessibility in narrative non-fiction. Over the last 30 years, the Women's Prize for Fiction has changed the landscape for women's fiction writing and the Women's Prize Trust aims to provide a similar platform for non-fiction writers with this new prize.

Books are eligible for the Women's Prize for Non-Fiction if they are a work of a single author published between the 2st April 2024 and the 31st March 2025 in the UK. After the longlist is announced in February, a shortlist is expected in March before the winner is announced at the Women's Trust summer party in June alongside the 2025 Women's Prize for Fiction. The winner will receive a cheque for £30,000 and a limited-edition artwork known as the Charlotte, both gifted by the Charlotte Aiken Trust. 

The inaugural Women's Prize for Non-Fiction was won by Doppleganger: A Trip into the Mirror World by Naomi Klein.

2025 Women's Prize for Non-Fiction Judges

The Women's Prize for Non-Fiction judging panel changes every year. This year the chair is Kavita Puri, award-winning British journalist, broadcaster, executive producer and author. Puri is joined on the judging panel by Dr Leah Broad, writer and broadcaster whose work focuses on women's cultural history; novelist and critic Elizabeth Buchan; Dr Elizabeth-Jane Burnett, writer and environmental academic; and Emma Gannon, author and writer of The Hyphen newsletter on substack. 

Kavita Puri, Chair of Judges, said: ‘Judging the Women’s Prize for Non-Fiction has been a huge privilege, and reading the books submitted has been both enlightening and enriching. My fellow judges and I are thrilled with the selection of sixteen books on this year’s longlist. What unites these diverse titles, that boast so many different disciplines and genres, is the accomplishment of the writing, the originality of the storytelling and the incisiveness of the research. Here are books that provoke debate and discussion, that offer insight into new experiences and perspectives, and that bring overlooked stories back to life and recognition. Amongst this stellar list, there are also reads that expertly steer us through the most pressing issues of our time, show the resilience of the human spirit, alongside others that elucidate the dangers of unchecked power, the consequence of oppression and the need for action and defiance.'

The 2025 Women's Prize for Non-Fiction Longlist

There are 16 titles on the Women's Prize for Non-Fiction longlist. British authors dominate this year with 11 of the longlisted authors from the UK. The longlist also features one Australian author, on Swedish, two Americans and one American who is also a citizen of the Cherokee Nation. 

The 2025 longlist has a variety of subject matter, style and genre. From revisionist histories to myth-busting biographies, insightful memoirs, agenda setting reportage on contemporary issues and real-life criminal cases. The writings that have made this year's longlist covers disciplines from geo-politics, art, music, natural history and true crime, to law, science, medicine and history.

Without further ado, the 2025 Women's Prize for Non-Fiction Longlist:

Autocracy, Inc.: The Dictators Who Want to Run the World by Anne Applebaum

Embers of the Hands: Hidden Histories of the Viking Age by Eleanor Barraclough

The Eagle and the Hart: The Tragedy of Richard II and Henry IV by Helen Castor

A Thousand Threads by Neneh Cherry

A Story of the Heart by Rachel Clarke

Raising Hare by Chloe Dalton

Ootlin by Jenni Fagan

Why Fish Don’t Exist: A Story of Loss, Love and the Hidden Order of Life by Lulu Miller

Agent Zo: The Untold Stories of Fearless WW2 Resistance Fighter Elżbieta Zawacka by Clare Mulley

By the Fire We Carry: The Generations-Long Fight for Justice on Native Land by Rebecca Nagle

Wild Thing: A Life of Paul Gauguin by Sue Prideaux

What the Wild Sea Can Be: The Future of the World's Ocean by Helen Scales

The Peepshow: The Murders at 10 Rillington Place by Kate Summerscale

Sister in Law: Fighting for Justice in a System Designed by Men by Harriet Wistrich

Tracker by Alexis Wright

Private Revolutions: Coming of Age in a New China by Yuan Yang

We're thrilled to have the opportunity to work with the Women's Prize Trust to give away the entire 16-book longlist to one lucky reader. To find out more and how to enter, please click here.

Browse all the books in this year's longlist below, we'll be updating you when the shortlist and winners are announced. 

For more information about the Women’s Prize, visit: www.womensprize.com