Helen Garner has won the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction for How To End a Story: Collected Diaries, 1978-1998, the BBC reports.
Garner’s book, published in the U.S. in March by Pantheon, collects the journal writings of the Australian novelist over the course of two decades. A critic for Kirkus wrote of the book, “Sharp observations and revelations make for lively reading.”
Robbie Millen, the chair of judges for the prize, called the book “remarkable” and “addictive,” and said, “Garner takes the diary form, mixing the intimate, the intellectual, and the everyday, to new heights. She is a brilliant observer and listener—every page has a surprising, sharp or amusing thought. Her collected diaries will surely be mentioned alongside The Diary of Virginia Woolf.”
Garner’s book beat out five others to claim the prize: Lone Wolf: Walking the Line Between Civilization and Wildness by Adam Weymouth; Captives and Companions: A History of Slavery and the Slave Trade in the Islamic World by Justin Marozzi; The Revolutionists: The Story of the Extremists Who Hijacked the 1970s by Jason Burke; The Boundless Deep: Young Tennyson, Science, and the Crisis of Belief by Richard Holmes; and Electric Spark: The Enigma of Dame Muriel by Frances Wilson.
The Baillie Gifford Prize was established in 1999 and comes with a cash prize of 50,000 British pounds, about $67,000. Previous winners include David Cairns for Berlioz: Vol. II, Servitude and Greatness and John Vaillant for Fire Weather: A True Story from a Hotter World.
Michael Schaub is a contributing writer.
