Arundhati Roy, Sarah Perry and Lea Ypi are among the writers longlisted for this year’s Women’s prize for nonfiction.

Sixteen authors are in contention to win the £30,000 award, launched in 2024 to address the persistent gender imbalance in UK nonfiction prize winners.

The 2026 longlist spans politics, memoir, science, art, history and biography, and includes seven debut authors. Chair of judges and Labour peer Thangam Debbonaire said the longlist was “hopeful”, and represented “women writing excellently on a wide range of subjects, each uncovering something new about our world”.

Among the best-known names on the list is the Booker prize-winning novelist and political activist Arundhati Roy, longlisted for her first memoir, Mother Mary Comes to Me, an exploration of identity, motherhood and the making of a writer, which Amit Chaudhuri described as “utterly absorbing” in a Guardian review.

British author Sarah Perry’s Death of an Ordinary Man, a meditation on grief, family and faith, centred on the death of her father-in-law, is also longlisted. Writing in the Guardian, Joe Moran called it “gem-like” and “special”, a book that “works its magic through the adamantine detail and quiet lyricism”.

The academic and author Lea Ypi is nominated for Indignity: A Life Reimagined, which examines her personal family history alongside political upheaval across the Balkans, from the Ottoman empire to the aftermath of communism – a history “brought to life through Ypi’s novelistic style”, Sami Kent wrote in his Guardian review.

History and politics loom large on the list – the BBC’s chief international correspondent Lyse Doucet is recognised for The Finest Hotel in Kabul, a people’s history of Afghanistan told through the shifting fortunes of the InterContinental hotel in the capital. Barbara Demick’s Daughters of the Bamboo Grove tells the true story of separated twins to illuminate the human consequences of China’s one-child policy, while Jane Rogoyska’s Hotel Exile looks at the history of the Hotel Lutetia in Paris, which was used as the headquarters of the German military intelligence service, the Abwehr, during the second world war.

Contemporary social and cultural questions are tackled in works including Lady Hale’s With the Law on Our Side, an insider’s account of how the legal system works and how it may be improved; Zakia Sewell’s Finding Albion, exploring British myth and folklore; and Ece Temelkuran’s Nation of Strangers, on exile, migration and belonging. The longlist also includes books on art and science, from Daisy Fancourt’s Art Cure, on the health benefits of creativity, to Harriet Rix’s The Genius of Trees, a study of how trees have shaped ecosystems and human history.

Other longlisted titles include Jenny Evans’s memoir Don’t Let It Break You, Honey, her account of being assaulted by a high-profile figure; Kadiatu Kanneh-Mason’s To Be Young, Gifted and Black, exploring creativity and race in the 21st century; Judith Mackrell’s Artists, Siblings, Visionaries, a dual biography of Gwen and Augustus John; Deepa Paul’s Ask Me How It Works, an exploration of love and desire in an open marriage; and Grace Spence Green’s To Exist As I Am, a doctor’s reflections on a life-changing spinal injury.

Debbonaire said: “The books on this hopeful longlist are rigorous and researched, lyrical and flowing. They are drawn together by the originality and skill with which they have been written. This reading list carries relevance and truth for the future as well as holding significant value for the present day.”

Claire Shanahan, executive director of the Women’s Prize Trust, said the longlist reflected the importance of hearing a variety of voices. “Reading and hearing a multiplicity of perspectives, experiences and ideas through nonfiction writing is more vital than ever – it is how we make sense of the world, it’s how we learn from the past, challenge injustice, and imagine new futures,” she said.

The creation of the prize was prompted by research which found that only 35.5% of winners across seven major UK nonfiction awards over the previous decade were women.

Last year’s prize went to Dr Rachel Clarke for The Story of a Heart, while the inaugural winner was Naomi Klein for Doppelganger.

The judges will announce a shortlist of six titles on 25 March, with the winner revealed on 11 June. The winning author will receive £30,000 and a limited-edition artwork known as the Charlotte.

Alongside Debbonaire, the judging panel includes Roma Agrawal, engineer, author and broadcaster, Nicola Elliott, founder of NEOM Wellbeing, Nina Stibbe, novelist and memoirist, and Nicola Williams, crown court judge and thriller author.

• To browse all books on the Women’s prize for nonfiction 2026 longlist, visit guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply.