The Biographers’ Club is now accepting submissions for The Slightly Foxed Best First Biography Prize 2023.
The prize of £2,500 will be awarded to the best book by a first-time biographer or memoirist in March 2024. Biographies published between 1 January 2023 and 3 December 2023 are eligible.
This year’s judges are Philip Eade, Sue Gaisford and Claire Mulley.
Philip Eade is the author of three biographies, Sylvia, Queen of the Headhunters (2007), Young Prince Philip (2011) and Evelyn Waugh: A Life Revisited (2016), all of which appeared in the Sunday Times’s ten best biographies of the year; the last two were also Book of the Week on BBC Radio 4. He has been a regular obituarist for the Daily Telegraph for the past 25 years, and a more occasional book reviewer.
Sue Gaisford reviewed non-fiction for the Economist for twenty years before moving to the Independent. She now reviews for the Financial Times and the Tablet, where she became Literary Editor. She is also a contributor to Slightly Foxed. She has taken part in judging the Authors’ Club best first novel award and taught workshops in memoir, autobiography and non-fiction writing. Her own memoir is a work in progress.
Clare Mulley is an award-winning author and broadcaster, primarily focused on female experience during the Second World War. Her three books, The Woman Who Saved the Children, The Spy Who Loved and The Women Who Flew for Hitler, are all under option and widely translated. Recent television includes two series of the BBC’s Rise of the Nazis, and several series for Channel 5, Channel 4 and Sky History. Clare writes and reviews for various papers including the Spectator and the TLS, and has twice been chair of the judges for the Historical Writers’ Association non-fiction prize. She is a recipient of the Bene Merito cultural honour of the Republic of Poland, and the Daily Mail Biographers’ Club Prize.
Previous Winners:
2022 Katherine Rundell, Super-Infinite & Osman Yousefzada, The Go-Between
2021 Lea Ypi, Free
2020 Heather Clark, Red Comet
2019 Jonathan Phillips, The Life and Legend of the Sultan Saladin
2018 Bart van Es, The Cut Out Girl
2017 Edmund Gordon, The Invention of Angela Carter
2016 Hisham Matar, The Return
2015 Alan Cumming, Not My Father’s Son
2014 Claudia Renton, Those Wild Wyndhams
For further details of requirements and to download an entry form visit: www.thebiographersclub.com