10th Anniversary Year

BBC FOUR SAMUEL JOHNSON LONGLIST ANNOUNCED

‘all life is here’

www.thesamueljohnsonprize.co.uk

The judges for the 2008 BBC FOUR Samuel Johnson Prize announced the longlist today, 16th April. Now in its tenth year the prize is the world’s richest non-fiction prize and is worth £30,000 to the winner.

From 131 entries and 31 call-ins, the 20 titles on the longlist range widely in interest and continue the reputation of the prize for diverse and thought-provoking books.

The list includes a daring and adventurous journey down the Congo; a discourse on life and death; the biography of an enigmatic genius, V S Naipaul, and a dark and grim account of The Troubles.

Rosie Boycott, Chair of the judges, comments:

“The 20 books on this year's BBC FOUR Samuel Johnson longlist encompass everything that is exciting, innovative and brilliant about non-fiction in Britain today. The sheer scope and range of the books is extraordinary: from mathematics to music, from adventures in the Congo to meditations on mortality, from the power-broking of Northern Ireland to the detective story that began one of literature's most ubiquitous genres: all life is here. As judges, we've been privileged to make the journey through the best of the best of this year's non-fiction output and we're confident that all these books will inform, enlighten and delight their readers. Each one of them amply bears out the simple fact that 'all the best stories are true’.”

Rosie Boycott is joined by a dynamic and eclectic panel of judges who offer a wide range of literary, journalistic and academic experience. They are literary editor of the Guardian, Claire Armitstead; poet, Daljit Nagra; Director of the Science Museum, Chris Rapley; and documentary maker and journalist, Hannah Rothschild.

The BBC FOUR Samuel Johnson Prize for Non Fiction Longlist 2008

The shortlist will be announced on 15 May. The judges will announce the winner of the Prize at an awards event in the Ballroom at the South Bank Centre, London on 15 July. The winner receives £30,000, and each of the five shortlisted authors, £1,000.

BBC FOUR will televise the awards ceremony  on Sunday 20th July and features complementary programming on the channel and on-line support on www.bbc.co.uk/bbcfour.

Former Winners

1999               Stalingrad by Antony Beevor (Penguin)
2000               Berlioz: Servitude and Greatness by David Cairns (The Penguin Press)
2001               The Third Reich: A New History by Michael Burleigh (Macmillan)
2002               Peacemakers: The Paris Peace Conference of 1919 by Margaret Macmillan (John Murray)
2003               Pushkin: A biography by T.J. Binyon (HarperCollins)
2004               Stasiland by Anna Funder (Granta)
2005               Like a Fiery Elephant by Jonathan Coe (Picador)
2006               1599: A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare by James Shapiro (Faber & Faber)
2007               Imperial Life in the Emerald City by Rajiv Chandrasekaran (Bloomsbury)

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Notes to Editors

• Jpeg scans of the longlisted books are available from Colman Getty 

• Photographs of the judges and the BBC FOUR Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction logo are available from Colman Getty

• The judges may be available for interview and can be contacted through Colman Getty

• The BBC FOUR Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction is open to books in the areas of current affairs, history, politics, science, sport, travel, biography, autobiography and the arts. Books published in English by writers of any nationality are eligible for the prize, provided they are published in the UK between 1 May 2007 and 30 April 2008

• The BBC FOUR Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction is managed by a steering committee and administered by Colman Getty. The steering committee is made up of Stuart Proffitt, Chair, (Publishing Director, Penguin), Antony Beevor (historian and author), Mark Bell (Channel Executive, BBC FOUR and BBC TWO), Peter Florence (Director of the Guardian Hay Festival), Martin Grindley (independent bookseller), Dotti Irving (Chief Executive, Colman Getty), Adam Kemp (Commissioner, BBC Arts), Mervyn King (Governor, The Bank of England), James Naughtie (broadcaster, BBC Radio 4’s Today Programme), Alan Rusbridger (Editor of The Guardian), Peter Straus (literary agent, Rogers, Coleridge and White) and Martin Taylor (International Adviser for Goldman Sachs)

• BBC FOUR will televise the awards ceremony  on Sunday 20th July and features complementary programming on the channel and on-line support on www.bbc.co.uk/bbcfour.

Colman Getty
April 2008