The 2025 Wingate Literary Prize longlist is comprised of seven novels and seven non-fiction titles. They cover a broad spectrum of opinions, style and content, interrogating what it means to be Jewish in multiple ways. All are enjoyable, some are challenging – perhaps challenging the idea of what a memoir looks like, how long a biography needs to be and indeed what we mean by a Jewish book. They will surprise and delight you.
The longlisted books are:
My Family by David Baddiel (HarperCollins)
The Postcard by Anne Berest, trans. Tina Kover (Europa Editions)
Long Island Compromise by Taffy Brodesser-Akner (Wildfire)
Final Verdict by Tobias Buck (Orion)
Spinoza by Ian Buruma (Yale University Press)
Cold Crematorium by József Debreczeni, trans. Paul Olchvary (Jonathan Cape)
Time’s Echo by Jeremy Eichler (Faber)
Eight Bright Lights by Sara Gibbs (Headline)
Elena: A Hand Made Life by Miriam Gold (Jonathan Cape)
Fervour by Toby Lloyd (Hodder)
Sufferance by Charles Palliser (Guernica Editions)
Alfred Dreyfus by Maurice Samuels (Yale University Press)
The Safekeep by Yael van Der Wouden (Viking)
Lublin by Manya Wilkinson (And Other Stories)
‘Whittling down our submissions to fourteen books was no small task: the quality of the work we read was outstanding. But we believe this diverse and engrossing selection absolutely fulfils the aim of the Wingate Prize in conveying the breadth and depth of Jewish experience in fiction and non-fiction. From illustrated memoir to clever contemporary novels and deeply researched history, the Wingate Prize longlist 2024 offers joy, intelligence and illumination.’
Erica Wagner, Chair of the judges
This year’s judging panel is comprised of the Chair, Erica Wagner, Keiron Pim, Rabbi Zahavit Shalev and Alice Sherwood.
The Wingate Prize and the Jewish Literary Foundation are pleased to be working in partnership this year. The shortlist will be announced in late January and the winner in late February, with a ceremony to follow at Jewish Book Week on Saturday 8th March.
Press information: Anna Pallai anna@ampliterary.co.uk / 07971 496 227
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Notes to editors
Keiron Pim is the author of two biographies, Endless Flight: the Life of Joseph Roth (Granta, 2022) and Jumpin’ Jack Flash: David Litvinoff and the Rock’n’Roll Underworld (Jonathan Cape, 2016). He has taught non-fiction writing at the University of East Anglia and the National Centre for Writing, and written for the Guardian, Daily Telegraph and London Review of Books. He lives in north Norfolk with his wife and three daughters.
Rabbi Zahavit Shalev is a rabbi at New North London Synagogue. She was ordained by Leo Baeck College in 2019, and wrote her rabbinic thesis on sleep. Reading and sleeping are both equally important to her.
Alice Sherwood is a Senior Visiting Research Fellow at The Policy Institute at King’s College London and author of the award-wining Authenticity: Reclaiming Reality in a Counterfeit Culture (Harper Collins, 2022). She has served as a trustee of the London Library and the Hay Festival Foundation. She lives in London and Wales.
Erica Wagner’s latest book is Mary and Mr Eliot: A Sort Of Love Story. She was the literary editor of the London Times for seventeen years and is a contributing writer for the New Statesman and consulting literary editor for Harper’s Bazaar. She is Editor-at-Large for a new publication, Boundless. She is the author of Chief Engineer: Washington Roebling, The Man Who Built the Brooklyn Bridge, winner of the Eccles Centre and Hay Festival Writer’s Award; her other books are Ariel’s Gift, Seizure, Gravity and she is the editor of First Light, a celebration of the work of Alan Garner. She was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2023.
The Wingate Literary Prize was established in 1977 by the late Harold Hyam Wingate. The winner receives £4,000.
The Harold Hyam Wingate Charitable Foundation is a private grant-giving institution, established over forty years ago.