samuel johnson prize

The Samuel Johnson Prize is one of the world's most prestigious awards for non-fiction writing. It was founded in 1999 based on an anonymous donation and is managed by BBC 4. Each winner receives 30000 and each finalist 2500. The prize is named after Samuel Johnson. Past Winners: 2004 Winner:

Anna Funder Stasiland

2003 Winner:

T.J. Binyon Pushkin

Shortlist:

Orlando Figes, Natasha's Dance: A Cultural History of Russia
Aminatta Forna, The Devil that Danced on the Water: A Daughter's Memoir of her Father, her Family, her Country and a Continent
Olivia Judson, Dr Tatiana's Sex Advice to All Creation
Claire Tomalin, Samuel Pepys: The Unequalled Self *Edgar Vincent, Nelson: Love and Fame

2002 Winner

Margaret Macmillan, Peacemakers: The Paris Peace Conference of 1919 and Its Attempt to End War

Shortlist

Eamon Duffy, The Voices of Morebath
William Fiennes, The Snow Geese
Richard Hamblyn, The Invention of Clouds: How an Amateur Meteorologist Forged the Language of the Skies
Roy Jenkins, Churchill: a Biography
Brendan Simms, Unfinest Hour: Britain and the Destruction of Bosnia

2001 Winner

Michael Burleigh, The Third Reich

Shortlist

Richard Fortey, Trilobite! Eyewitness to Evolution
Catherine Merridale, Night of Stone
Graham Robb, Rimbaud
Simon Sebag Montefiore, Prince of Princes: The Life of Potemkin
Robert Skidelsky, John Maynard Keynes

2000 Winner

David Cairns, Berlioz: Volume 2

Shortlist

Tony Hawks, Playing the Moldovans at Tennis
Brenda Maddox, Yeats's Ghosts
Matt Ridley, Genome
William Shawcross, Deliver Us From Evil
Francis Wheen, Karl Marx

1999 Winner

Samuel Johnson Prize: Antony Beevor, Stalingrad

Shortlist

Ian Kershaw, Hitler
Ann Wroe, Pilate
John Diamond, C: Because Cowards Get Cancer Too
Richard Holmes, Coleridge: Darker Reflections
David Landes, Wealth and Poverty of Nations

Samuel Johnson Prize

See also