A biography of English poet John Donne wins UK nonfiction book prize: At a ceremony in London, British writer Katherine Rundell’s book “Super-Infinite: The Transformations of John Donne” was chosen the winner of the 50,000 pound ($59,000) Baillie Gifford Prize. Rundell’s book was chosen unanimously by the six judges from among 362 submissions. The book argues that Donne, best known four centuries after his death for a poem that begins “No man is an island” – is “a writer perhaps as great as Shakespeare, and a writer we should all read for his writing on love, sex and death.”
Notably: Last year’s winner was Patrick Radden Keefe’s “Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty,” an expose of the family responsible for the opioid epidemic in the United States.
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About the Baillie Gifford Prize:
The Baillie Gifford Prize recognizes English-language books from any country in current affairs, history, politics, science, sport, travel, biography, autobiography and the arts. The other finalists were Caroline Elkins’ “Legacy of Violence: A History of the British Empire;” Sally Hayden’s “My Fourth Time, We Drowned: Seeking Refuge on the World’s Deadliest Migration Route;” Jonathan Freedland’s “The Escape Artist: The Man Who Broke Out of Auschwitz to Warn the World;” Anna Keay’s “The Restless Republic: Britain Without a Crown;” and Polly Morland’s “A Fortunate Woman: A Country Doctor’s Story.”
