Neneh Cherry among shortlisted women for non-fiction prize

BBC News

27-03-2025

An MP, a palliative care doctor, and musician Neneh Cherry are among the authors shortlisted for the Women's Prize for Non-Fiction in 2025.The Buffalo Stance singer wrote A Thousand Threads, a personal memoir which Kavita Puri, the chair of judges, called "exceptional and effortless".Yuan Yang, the MP for Woodley and Earley, wrote Private Revolutions: Coming of Age in a New China, while Oxford-based Dr Rachel Clarke wrote The Story of a Heart.Ms Puri said the non-fiction works were "united by an unforgettable voice, rigour, and unique insight".
The shortlist is rounded out by Chloe Dalton's Raising Hare, Clare Mulley's Agent Zo: The Untold Stories of Courageous WW2 Resistance Fighter Elzbieta Zawacka, and Helen Scales' What the Wild Sea Can Be: The Future of the World's Ocean.
Ms Puri said: "It was such a joy to embrace such an eclectic mix of narratives by such insightful women writers - we are thrilled and immensely proud of our final shortlist."She said Cherry's memoir was a story of a "remarkable life and the many threads that made it". "This is a book about belonging, family, how we find our place in society and, of course, music," she said."It's a complex portrayal full of warmth, honesty and integrity, and how Neneh came to be who she is today."
Ms Yang, a former journalist and economist, is the first ever Chinese-born MP in the UK. Her book is described by organisers as a "portrait of modern China told through the lives of four ordinary women, each striving for a better future in an unequal society".Ms Puri called it "eye-opening, beautifully written and carefully researched".Dr Clarke's book, which recounts the story of a heart transplant, was described by panel judge and academic Dr Elizabeth-Jane Burnett as "meticulously researched" and moving "effortlessly between disciplines".
Chloe Dalton's book is a "beautiful meditation on the interactions between the human and the natural world", according to novelist and critic Elizabeth Buchan.Ms Dalton, who is also a political adviser and foreign policy specialist, wrote of rescuing a leveret during lockdown.Historian Clare Mulley's biography is about an unsung World War Two resistance fighter from Poland. Writer and broadcaster Dr Leah Broad said it was "masterfully written", "phenomenally well researched" and a "window into World War Two stories that aren't often told".Helen Scales, a marine biologist, wrote a "heartfelt exploration of the deep sea", according to fellow author Emma Gannon.
The Women's Prize for Fiction was launched in 1996, with the Non-Fiction Prize launched last year.The winner will be announced on 12 June and receive a cheque for £30,000.
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