LONDON (AP) — Go into many bookstores, and the nonfiction shelves will be dominated by men.
The Women’s Prize for Nonfiction hopes to change that.
“Nonfiction is still perceived to some extent as a man’s game,” said British historian Suzannah Lipscomb, who is chairing the judging panel for the inaugural edition of the U.K.-based prize. The judges announced a list of 16 contenders for the 30,000 pound ($38,000) award on Thursday.
An offshoot of the 28-year-old Women’s Prize for Fiction, whose past winners include Zadie Smith, Tayari Jones and Barbara Kingsolver, the new prize is open to female English-language writers from any country in any nonfiction genre.
Lipscomb noted that in 2022, only 26.5% of nonfiction books reviewed in Britain’s newspapers were by women, and male writers dominated established nonfiction writing prizes.
“In all the ways that we recognize expertise and authority — giving it exposure, giving it attention, sales, money earned by the authors — women were not …