The leading International Non-Fiction Prize; British Academy Book Prize for Global Cultural Understanding 2024 has announced the Shortlist which includes ‘Smoke and Ashes: Opium's Hidden Histories’ by Amitav Ghosh along with five other international titles. The highly prestigious prize is open to authors of all nationalities based anywhere in the world provided that the nominated work is available in the English language. The prize carries a cash prize of £25,000.
Amitav Ghosh was hailed by the jury members for his “storytelling skills to bring to life this highly readable travelogue, memoir and history”. The British Academy Book Prize statement says; “In ‘Smoke and Ashes: Opium's Hidden Histories’, Amitav Ghosh draws on decades of archival research for his Ibis Trilogy novels to trace the economic and cultural impact of the global opium trade from the 18th century to the present-day opium crisis and the Oxycontin scandal in the USA.”
The other books shortlisted are:
Material World: A Substantial Story of Our Past and Future by Ed Conway
The Secret Lives of Numbers: A Global History of Mathematics & Its Unsung Trailblazers by Kate Kitagawa & Timothy Revell
The Tame and the Wild: People and Animals after 1492 by Marcy Norton
Language City: The Fight to Preserve Endangered Mother Tongues by Ross Perlin
Divided: Racism, Medicine and Why We Need to Decolonise Healthcare by Annabel Sowemimo
The British Academy is the UK’s national academy for the humanities and social sciences, with a mission to mobilize these disciplines to promote a better understanding of the world and shape a brighter future.
The Winner will be announced at an award ceremony in London on 22nd Oct. with each of the shortlisted writers to receive a sum of £1,000.
Cover Pic Credit: www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk
