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The Slightly Foxed Best First Biography Prize 2021

The Biographers’ Club is now accepting submissions for The Slightly Foxed Best First Biography Prize 2021.

The prize of £2,500 will be awarded to the best book by a first-time biographer in March 2022.

This year’s judges are Susannah Clapp, Horatio Clare and John de Falbe.

– Susannah Clapp has been the theatre critic of the Observer since 1997. She helped to set up the London Review of Books and is the author of books about Bruce Chatwin and Angela Carter.

– Horatio Clare’s books include Running for the Hills (Somerset Maugham Award), A Single SwallowDown to the Sea in Ships (Stanford Dolman Travel Book of the Year), Aubrey and the Terrible Yoot (Branford Boase Award), The Light in the Dark and Something of his Art: Walking to Lubeck with JS Bach.  His latest book is Heavy Light: a story of madness, mania and healing. Horatio broadcasts regularly on BBC Radio, writes for the Financial Times and the Spectator among others, and lectures at the University of Manchester.

– John de Falbe has been one of the directors of John Sandoe (Books) Ltd, an independent bookshop in Chelsea, since 1989. He is also the author of three novels and was for some years a regular reviewer for the Spectator.

Biographies published between 1 January 2021 and 31 December 2021 are eligible.

Winners of the prize for the last five years were:

– 2020 Heather Clarke for Red Comet: The Short Life and Blazing Art of Sylvia Plath

– 2019 Jonathan Phillips for The Life and Legend of the Sultan Saladin

– 2018 Bart van Es for The Cut Out Girl

– 2017 Edmund Gordon for The Invention of Angela Carter

– 2016 Hisham Matar for The Return: Fathers, Sons and the Land in Between


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