Shortlist for £25k British Academy Book Prize announced

In the UK, the shortlist for the £25,000 (A$42,650) British Academy Book Prize for Global Cultural Understanding has been announced, reports the Bookseller.

The shortlisted books are:

• The Invention of Miracles: Language, power, and Alexander Graham Bell’s quest to end deafness (Katie Booth, Scribe)
• Aftermath: Life in the fallout of the Third Reich (Harald Jähner, trans by Shaun Whiteside, W H Allen)
• Osebol: Voices from a Swedish Village (Marit Kapla, trans by Peter Graves, Allen Lane)
• Horizons: A global history of science (James Poskett, Viking)
• When Women Kill: Four crimes retold (Alia Trabucco Zerán, trans by Sophie Hughes, And Other Stories)
• Kingdom of Characters: A tale of language, obsession, and genius in modern China (Jing Tsu, Allen Lane).

Established in 2013, the prize was created by the British Academy to celebrate international works of nonfiction that contribute to ‘global cultural understanding and illuminate the interconnections and divisions that shape cultural identity worldwide’.

Last year’s winner was Cambridge historian Sujit Sivasundaram for his book Waves Across the South: A new history of revolution and empire (HarperCollins).

Category: International news