2004 - The Judges Comments
Comments

Michael Wood, Chair, comments:

‘All of us on the panel were delighted - and genuinely excited - by the final six books in the BBC FOUR Samuel Johnson Prize 2004. They seem to me to encapsulate the best in current British non-fiction, but with a strong international flavour too. They include powerful and moving grand sweep history, a wonderful literary biography, and a tour de force of popular science; but also in the list are what seemed to all of us to be compelling and stylistically innovative adventures in travel and politics in which the narrator's own person comes to the fore in a bold and fresh way.’

The judges for the 2004 prize are: writer and broadcaster, Michael Wood (Chair); author, broadcaster and journalist, Aminatta Forna; political editor of BBC TV’s Newsnight, Martha Kearney; science writer and broadcaster, Simon Singh; and author, journalist and broadcaster, Francis Wheen. The shortlist for the prize will be announced at Samuel Johnson’s House on Tuesday 4 May.  The winner of The BBC Four Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction 2004 will be announced at an awards dinner at the Savoy Hotel in London on Tuesday 15 June.