The Cundill History Prize has revealed its finalists, with three authors in contention for the Canadian award given annually to “the book that embodies historical scholarship, originality, literary quality, and broad appeal.”
Marlene L. Daut was named a finalist for The First and Last King of Haiti: The Rise and Fall of Henry Christophe, her biography of the sole monarch of Haiti, who ruled from 1811 to 1820. A critic for Kirkus said the book offered “scholarly insights into a grandiose historical character who remains an enigma.”
Lyndal Roper is up for the award for Summer of Fire and Blood: The German Peasants’ War, about the uprising in central Europe in 1525. A Kirkus reviewer wrote of the book, “Capably recounting a forgotten episode in European history, Roper’s book is full of lessons for modern readers.”
Also named a finalist was Sophia Rosenfeld for The Age of Choice: A History of Freedom in Modern Life, which traces the history of personal choice over a four-century.
Ada Ferrer, the chair of the prize jurors, said in a statement, “It was not easy to get from a list of eight truly excellent books to a slate of only three finalists. The books we selected speak to the extraordinary range and vibrancy of historical writing today.…These are wonderful books that deserve our attention and that will, I think, stand the test of time.”
The Cundill History Prize, administered by McGill University in Montreal, was established in 2008. Previous winners include Gary J. Bass for The Blood Telegram: Nixon, Kissinger, and a Forgotten Genocide and Tania Branigan for Red Memory: The Afterlives of China’s Cultural Revolition.
The winner of this year’s prize, which comes with a cash award of $75,000, will be revealed on October 30.
Michael Schaub is a contributing writer.
