This Is London longlisted for The 2016 Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction

Ben Judah's This Is London, an investigation into the capital's hidden immigrant population, has been longlisted for The 2016 Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction, which celebrates the best in non-fiction writing. The titles chosen by the judges span the breadth of non-fiction writing, from literary biography and history to journalism and popular science. 

Stephanie Flanders, Chair of the Judges, comments:

“Shortly after committing to judge this award I found I had an overwhelming – and deeply unhelpful – urge to read fiction. But each of these ten very different books takes you on a journey that is as engrossing and imaginative as any novel. They aim high, and deliver. I am not looking forward to having to choose between them.”

The longlist has been chosen by a panel chaired by former BBC Economics Editor, Stephanie Flanders, together with Philip Ball, science writer and author; Jonathan Derbyshire, executive comment editor of the Financial Times; Dr Sophie Ratcliffe, scholar, writer and literary critic and Rohan Silva, co-founder of the social enterprise, Second Home.

Also on the longlist:

Second-hand Time, Svetlana Alexievich, translated by Bela Shayevich (Fitzcarraldo Editions) 

The Vanishing Man, Laura Cumming (Chatto & Windus)

Being a Beast, Charles Foster (Profile Books)

Stalin and the Scientists, Simon Ings (Faber & Faber)

Negroland: A Memoir, Margo Jefferson (Granta Books)

The Return: Fathers, Sons and the Land In Between, Hisham Matar (Viking)

The Gene, Siddhartha Mukherjee (Bodley Head)

East West Street, Philippe Sands (Weidenfeld & Nicolson)

Guilty Thing: A Life of Thomas De Quincey, Frances Wilson (Bloomsbury)

The shortlist will be announced on Monday 17 October. The winner of the 2016 prize will be announced on Tuesday 15 November.