Adam Weymouth Longlist interview

How does it feel to be longlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-fiction 2025?    

Well it's such an honour. I've followed the list for my whole adult life, so I can't quite believe I'm now on it. Both of the previous winners, Richard Flanagan, and in particular John Vaillant, have been huge influences on me. And some of this year's other nominees - Barbara Demick and Lyse Doucet – have also been big inspirations in their commitment to uncovering stories and giving voice to the unheard. My agent told me to go out and read Demick's Nothing to Envy before I began writing my first book. So I'm pretty awed to be in such brilliant company.

What inspired you to write Lone Wolf?  

Ten years ago I walked across Scotland, beginning on an estate attempting to reintroduce wolves, and finishing where Scotland's last wolf is reputed to have been shot, in 1680. Along the way I spoke with gamekeepers, hikers, conservationists and farmers about the wolf's possible reintroduction, and I saw what powerful emotions the wolf stirs up in people. It's hard to think of a comparable animal. The wolf becomes a symbol for that which is outside of our control, and people spoke to me about their fears, their hopes for the future. When we speak about the wolf, I came to understand, we are never only speaking about wolves.  

So with Europe at a crossroads, Slavc's journey suggested an interesting way to try and get under the continent's skin. As well as seeing how people felt about living alongside the wolf again, I wanted to interrogate those other changes happening in the Alps – climate change, immigration, rural depopulation, the rise of the far right. I was drawn to Slavc because he had walked a line through all of this, and through some of the places feeling these changes most acutely.  

In terms of research, you spoke with hunters, farmers, scientists, and locals. Which conversation surprised you the most?  

There are so many. But if I have to single someone out, then maybe it's the young shepherd couple whom I met at the end of my walk, in the mountains in Lessinia. Mattia had been a war photographer; Sofia had worked at the Italian embassy in Congo, and they had both packed it in to herd sheep. They're part of a younger generation returning to the land, trying to respect the traditions of older farmers, but also showing that it's possible to do things differently. Despite the problems that the wolves caused them, they believed that coexistence was important for the land, that both the herding and the wolves were part of a greater whole. They were so hospitable and we spent many days together, walking in the hills, watching their sheep. It's the people who are trying to preserve both culture and biodiversity who I find incredibly inspiring.  

What do you hope readers will take away from your book?  

Hope. After being close to extinction, wolves are thriving across Europe once again, and it begs the question that if wolves can achieve this - once the most reviled of animals - then what else might not be inevitable. Right now that feels like an important message. We're telling a very different story about wolves than the one we told a hundred, or even fifty years ago, when they were seen as the Devil's hounds, “the beast of waste and desolation”. It's stories that shape how we think about these animals, and their survival depends on the stories that we tell. That's inspiring for any writer: that it's stories that still make the world.  

But no win is guaranteed. The wolf's resurgence has came about largely thanks to European-wide conservation measures, and those measures are now being threatened as the European project starts to fracture. The book is a plea to work across borders, both literally and also symbolically – to listen to those on the far side of the fence.  

Did you ever consider telling this story through a fictional lens, or was nonfiction always the goal?  

No, it never occurred to me to write this as fiction, but maybe that's because I don't see such a strong distinction between the two forms – I think they can both hit the same places. Obviously nonfiction has to adhere to the facts, but a lot of what moves me in a novel is equally applicable to nonfiction work. Well-realised characters; adventure and escapism; a love of words; the exploration of a complex question through a compelling story: those are the things I'm drawn to when I read or write.  

There are some sections of the book told from the wolf's perspective and they are fictional in a sense, although grounded in as much fact as I could gather. The wolf I followed had already been well studied in the scientific community, the hard data chewed over and analysed, but no one had done a journey like this. I felt I'd earned the right to attempt seeing the world from his point of view, however clumsily, having walked all those miles in his shoes.

How did you balance lyrical nature writing with journalistic inquiry?

One reason I do the journeys that I do is to really immerse myself in a place. Moving slowly is the best way I've found of getting to grips with somewhere, and it gives me a much better impression of somewhere than if I was a passive observer. I've always got a notebook in my pocket and I'm writing all the time, I think of it like sketching. Those immediate descriptions are often the best.

The same goes for making connections with people. The first time I travelled in Alaska I was there as a journalist, dipping in and out of places, and I found it quite hard to connect. Then I went back and spent five months canoeing the Yukon, and I people responded to me in a completely different way.  

Maintaining that balance is very important to me. The lyrical writing is a way in for people to engage with the ideas, but the journalistic inquiry is essential to the nature writing – I don't believe it's possible to write honestly about nature now without acknowledging its political dimensions.

If you could describe your book in three words, what would they be?

Change is scary