The longlist for the £30,000 Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction, which celebrates the best in non-fiction writing, has been announced.
The ten titles on this year’s longlist are Second-hand Time, Svetlana Alexievich, translated by Bela Shayevich,The Vanishing Man by Laura Cumming, Being a Beast by Charles Foster, Stalin and the Scientists by Simon Ings, Negroland: A Memoir, by Margo Jefferson, This is London by Ben Judah, The Return: Fathers, Sons and the Land In Between by Hisham Matar, The Gene by Siddhartha Mukherjee, East West Street by Philippe Sands and Guilty Thing: A Life of Thomas De Quincey by Frances Wilson.
The titles chosen by the judges span the breadth of non-fiction writing, from literary biography and history to journalism and popular science.
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.
The shortlist will be announced on October 17.
The winner of the 2016 prize will be announced on November 15.
The winner of last year’s prize was Neurotribes: The Legacy of Autism and How to Think Smarter About People Who Think Differently by Steve Silberman.
http://thebailliegiffordprize.co.uk
Herald Angel-winning piper and Gaelic singer Allan MacDonald appears in a lunchtime concert of Scottish traditional music at the Byre Theatre in St Andrews on Wednesday, September 28. MacDonald was awarded the Angel for his From Battle Lines to Bar Lines series of concerts featuring revolutionary arrangements of pibroch.
He will be performing with leading Scottish harper Karen Marshalsay, who specialises in bagpipe music, and fiddler Eilidh Steel, of experimental folk-electronic ensemble Equilibrium and popular ceilidh band Heeliegoleerie, in a programme of traditional tunes sourced from old manuscripts and collections alongside original compositions by all three musicians.
The music begins at 1:10pm.
www.byretheatre.com
Winners of the Forward Prizes for Poetry 2016 have been announced, with Vahni Capildeo winning the £15,000 prize for Best Collection for Measure of Expatriation.
Measures of Expatriation is Vahni Capildeo’s fourth collection.
Sasha Dugdale was awarded Best Single Poem for ‘Joy’, first published in PN Review.
The Felix Dennis Prize for Best First Collection went to Tiphanie Yanique for Wife.
www.forwardartsfoundation.org
Dunfermline Arts Guild begins a new series of Sunday concerts at the town’s Carnegie Hall on October 16 when pianist Alexander Ullman performs pieces by Bach, Schumann, Stravinsky and Liszt. Ullman, who studied at the Purcell School, the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, and the Royal College of Music, is currently completing his Artist Diploma at the RCM as the Benjamin Britten Piano Fellow. He won 1st Prize at the Liszt Competition in Budapest and earlier this year he won 1st Prize in the inaugural Manhattan International Music Competition. The concert begins at 7:30pm. www.daguild.co.uk
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