The Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction

Fiammetta Rocco

Fiammetta Rocco (Chair), chief culture writer at The Economist, was the books and arts editor for 15 years from 2003 to 2018, supervising the publication’s print and online book reviews and culture coverage. She is also culture editor of The Economist’s bi-monthly magazine, 1843. Rocco has written two Economist special reports, one on the art market and the other on the future of museums. She has served on juries for several book prizes, both for fiction and non-fiction, and is the administrator of the Man Booker International Prize for fiction. Reflecting on an early bout of malaria when she was a child living in Kenya, her book, The Miraculous Fever-Tree: Malaria and the Quest for a Cure that Changed the World, was published in 2003. Fiammetta Rocco’s investigative journalism has won a number of awards in the United States and Britain.

Susan Brigden

Susan Brigden is Supernumerary Fellow of Lincoln College, Oxford, and Fellow of the British Academy. She has written London and the Reformation (1989, republished 2015), New Worlds, Lost Worlds: the Rule of the Tudors (2000) and Thomas Wyatt: the Heart’s Forest (2012, winner of the Wolfson Prize for History, 2013).

Stephen Bush

Stephen Bush is special correspondent at the New Statesman, where he writes their weekly politics column and their daily morning briefing. His first job in journalism was at the Telegraph, where he worked as Benedict Brogan’s editorial assistant. Before that, he worked for several years as a bookseller. He was hired by the New Statesman in 2014 to edit their rolling politics blog, the Staggers, and in 2015 was the first mainstream political journalist to call the Labour leadership race for Jeremy Corbyn. In 2017 he was named the PSA’s Journalist of the Year, and was shortlisted for Political Commentator of the Year by the Society of Editors. In addition, he is a columnist for the i and writes on cookery for the Guardian. In addition to cooking and reading, his hobbies include Doctor Who and being disappointed by Arsenal Football Club.

Dr Anne-Marie Imafidon

Dr Anne-Marie Imafidon is a prodigy in every sense of the word. Aged 11, she was the youngest girl ever to pass A-level computing, and was just 20 years old when she received her Master’s Degree in Mathematics and Computer Science from the University of Oxford. Since then, she has forged an enviable CV, including positions at Goldman Sachs, Hewlett-Packard and Deutsche Bank. Then there are the Honorary Doctorates from Open University & Glasgow Caledonian University and an Honorary Fellowship at Keble College, Oxford.

It is this wealth of experience and pioneering spirit that led her to co-found the STEMettes, an award-winning social initiative dedicated to inspiring and promoting the next generation of young women in the STEM sectors. Since its inception 5 years ago, it has exposed more than 17,500 girls across Europe to Anne-Marie’s vision for a more diverse and balanced science and tech community.

Nigel Warburton

Nigel Warburton is a freelance writer, editor, and podcaster. His books include A Little History of Philosophy, The Art Question, Philosophy: the Basics, Philosophy: the Classics, Free Speech: A Very Short Introduction, Thinking from A to Z, Ernö Goldfinger: the Life of an Architect, and, as editor, a book about the photographer Bill Brandt. With David Edmonds he makes the Philosophy Bites podcast, and they have co-edited three books based on the series. Nigel also runs the Thinking Books podcast. Consultant Senior Editor for the online magazine of ideas and culture www.aeon.co, Editor at Large for New Philosopher magazine, and a regular interviewer for www.fivebooks.com, he has written for many different magazines and newspapers, including The Guardian, Prospect Magazine, The TLS, The New European, Aeon, and The Economist. He hosts a monthly event ‘Philosophy in the Bookshop’ at Blackwell’s bookshop, Oxford.