Personal stories are a strong focus in this year’s Baillie Gifford prize for nonfiction longlist, with Yiyun Li’s memoir about the loss of her two teenage sons by suicide and Barbara Demick’s account of her role reuniting a pair of twins separated in China among those recognised.

Biographies and narrative histories which explore a recent period from a personal perspective also dominate the longlist of 12 titles – nine of which were written by journalists, including the Guardian writer Jason Burke and the BBC war correspondent Lyse Doucet. Eight of the authors are British.

The Revolutionists: The Story of the Extremists Who Hijacked the 1970s by Burke, which draws on his lifetime of reporting for the Guardian as a foreign correspondent, is up against The Finest Hotel in Kabul: A People’s History of Afghanistan by Doucet, which weaves together the experiences of Afghans who have kept the Hotel Intercontinental running since 1969.

Judges commended Daughters of the Bamboo Grove by Demick, a previous winner of the prize, for “humanising” the effects of China’s one-child policy by exposing the families torn apart by its implementation. Another longlisted title, How to End a Story: Collected Diaries by the Australian writer Helen Garner, was praised for candidly chronicling the breakdown of a marriage.

Things in Nature Merely Grow by Li, a novelist and finalist for the Pulitzer prize, was singled out as “unlike any other book on the list” with “beautiful” and “extraordinary” writing that led the judges into “the abyss of personal tragedy”.

Three biographies – of Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Muriel Spark and the Beatles – also feature on the longlist.

The winner of the prize will receive £50,000, with the other shortlisted authors – who will be announced on 2 October – receiving £5,000 each.

This year’s judging panel included the Times literary editor Robbie Millen, the historian and author Pratinav Anil, the journalist Inaya Folarin Iman, the writer and historian Lucy Hughes-Hallett, the Economist culture journalist Rachel Lloyd and the author and biographer Peter Parker.

Millen, who was the judging chair, said “variety” was the common theme of the longlist. “All the judges were impressed, delighted and relieved by the mind-quickening variety of the books that we read in terms of style, character and subject matter … All of human life can be found in the pages of these 12 remarkable books,” he said.

Judges selected the longlist from more than 350 nonfiction books published between 1 November 2024 and 31 October 2025.

None of the writers longlisted this year were debut authors. Frances Wilson makes her third appearance on the prize’s longlist for Electric Spark: The Enigma of Muriel Spark, which the judges hailed as a “dazzling biography” of the novelist’s mind and character, alongside twice shortlisted Richard Holmes for The Boundless Deep: Young Tennyson, Science and the Crisis of Belief. This book, which focuses on the poet’s early years and his immersion in scientific thought, is a masterful look at “how poets respond to the faith-quaking challenge of science”, Millen said.

The third biography on the list, John & Paul: A Love Story in Songs by Ian Leslie, is an account of the love and jealousy between the Beatles which judges found “deeply entertaining and enjoyable”.

Europe is a focus for three of the other longlisted authors. Between the Waves: The Hidden History of a Very British Revolution 1945-2016 by New Statesman journalist Tom McTague is a “gripping exploration of Euroscepticism in Britain”, according to the judges. The Last Days of Budapest: Spies, Nazis, Rescuers and Resistance by Adam LeBor “skilfully” recreates life and death in Budapest during the second world war, while Adam Weymouth’s Lone Wolf: Walking the Faultlines of Europe – which documents an epic walk by a wolf from Slovenia through the Alps to Italy – was praised by the judges for its discussion of conservation and rewilding.

The remaining book on the longlist is Captives and Companions, which judges described as a “thoroughly investigated” book on slavery in the Muslim world, by Justin Marozzi, winner of the Royal Society of Literature Ondaatje prize.

The investment management firm Baillie Gifford has sponsored the prize since 2016. Last year’s winner, Richard Flanagan, delayed accepting the £50,000 prize money for his book Question 7. In his acceptance speech, he said that he would not accept the reward until the fund manager shares a plan to reduce its investment in fossil fuel extraction and increase investments in renewables. “As each of us is guilty,” the 63-year-old concluded, “each of us too bears a responsibility to act: a writer, a fund manager.”

Last year, a campaign by Fossil Free Books (FFB) highlighted Baillie Gifford’s investments in businesses connected to fossil fuels and Israel, leading to its sponsorships of nine UK literary festivals coming to an end in June 2024.

Baillie Gifford continues to sponsor the nonfiction prize, however. Previous winners of the prize have included Antony Beevor, Jonathan Coe, Serhii Plokhy, Hallie Rubenhold and Katherine Rundell.

Browse all the novels on the Baillie Gifford 2025 longlist at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply.

In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123, or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In the US, you can call or text the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline on 988, chat on 988lifeline.org, or text HOME to 741741 to connect with a crisis counsellor. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org