British Academy Book Prize 2025 | Sunil Amrith’s reading recommendations
Posted by Sunil Amrith
Our next British Academy Book Prize nominee is Sunil Amrith, author of The Burning Earth: An Environmental History of the Last 500 Years; he recommends three very different works of non-fiction that have stood out for him in recent years.
Meet all of the shortlisted authors at the British Academy Book Prize shortlist event on Tuesday 21 October at 6 p.m. at the British Academy and online. Tickets are free, but booking is essential – find out more here.
Winnie and Nelson: Portrait of a Marriage by Jonny Steinberg
A gripping and surprising portrait of the relationship between Nelson and Winnie Mandela. Steinberg’s meticulously researched and beautifully written political biography asks profound questions leadership and political transformation.
What is Mine by José Henrique Bortoluci, translated by Rahul Bery
This is a deeply moving book about fathers and sons, about the dreams and the costs of progress, about the history of modern Brazil, about capitalism and cancer. Based on interviews with his father – a truck driver who helped build Brazil’s infrastructure of highways – Bortoluci tells the story of one man’s life, vivid and loquacious and free from judgement.
handiwork by Sara Baume
A delightful short book: a woodworker’s meditation on craft, handiwork weaves together elements of memoir with gentle and unpretentious reflections on the life of an artist. I gulped it down in one sitting and then went back to reread it slowly.
Sunil Amrith is the author of The Burning Earth: An Environmental History of the Last 500 Years, published by Penguin Books. See all the books on the British Academy Book Prize shortlist here.
