Slightly Foxed and The Biographers’ Club are delighted to announce that the winner of the Slightly Foxed Best First Biography Prize 2023 is Daniel Finkelstein for Hitler, Stalin, Mum & Dad.
From left to right: Sue Gaisford (judge), Arabella Pike (Daniel Finkelstein’s publisher at William Collins), Gail Pirkis (Slightly Foxed), Clare Mulley (judge)
THE PRIZE
- The Prize awards £2,500 to the judges’ choice of the best first biography published each year.
- The winner was announced at a prize- giving celebration on Tuesday 19th March 2024 at Maggs Bros Ltd, 48 Bedford Square, London WC1B 3BR.
- This is the 10th year that Slightly Foxed has sponsored the Prize.
2023 SHORTLIST
- Quartet: How Four Women Changed the Musical World by Leah Broad (Faber)
- Messalina: The Life and Times of Rome’s Most Scandalous Empress by Honor Cargill-Martin (Head of Zeus)
- Hitler, Stalin, Mum & Dad by Daniel Finkelstein (William Collins)
- A Pebble in the Throat: Growing up between Two Continents by Aasmah Mir (Headline)
- Go the Way Your Blood Beats by Emmett de Monterey (Viking)
‘“Truth lies at the feet of liberty”– what a brilliant opening line. This is an important, powerful and deeply humane account of one family surviving the criminal, murderous policies of both Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia, and of one man’s prescience in cataloguing Nazi crimes. Hitler, Stalin, Mum & Dad is a masterclass in biography.’ Judge Clare Mulley
2023 JUDGES
- Philip Eade is the author of three biographies, Sylvia, Queen of the Headhunters (2007), Young Prince Philip (2011) and Evelyn Waugh: A Life Revisited (2016), all of which appeared in The Sunday Times’s ten best biographies of the year; the last two were also Book of the Week on BBC Radio 4.
- Sue Gaisford reviewed non-fiction for the Economist for twenty years before moving to the Independent. She now reviews for the Financial Times and the Tablet, where she became Literary Editor.
- Clare Mulley is an award-winning author and broadcaster. Her three books, The Woman Who Saved the Children, The Spy Who Loved and The Women Who Flew for Hitler, are all under option and widely translated. Clare writes and reviews for various papers including the Spectator and the TLS, and has twice been chair of the judges for the Historical Writers Association non-fiction prize.
ABOUT SLIGHTLY FOXED
- The Magazine: Founded in 2004 by former John Murray editors Gail Pirkis and Hazel Wood, Slightly Foxed is the highly acclaimed yet good-humoured and unstuffy literary magazine that introduces its readers to good books from both the past and the present. It has a readership of approximately 18,000 booklovers in around 80 countries worldwide. Contributors have included Penelope Lively, Robert Macfarlane, Olivia Potts, Alexandra Pringle, Mick Herron, Kate Young, Quentin Blake, Melissa Harrison, Michael Holroyd and Adam Sisman, Sarah Perry, Daisy Hay, Tim Pears, Justin Marozzi and Margaret Drabble. The 80th issue was published in December and in 2024 Slightly Foxed is celebrating its 20th birthday.
- The Books: Slightly Foxed’s non-fiction list of cloth-bound limited-editions was launched in 2008 and encompasses some of the twentieth century’s best memoirs, biographies and classic children’s fiction, with works by Edward Ardizzone, ‘BB’, Gerald Durrell, Graham Greene, Helene Hanff, Luke Jennings, Michael Holroyd, Hilary Mantel, Gavin Maxwell, V. S. Pritchett, Dodie Smith and Rosemary Sutcliff, among others.
- The Podcast: The Slightly Foxed podcast was launched five years ago and has around 15,000 listens to each episode. Relaxed, conversational, and beautifully produced, the podcast is an audio version of the magazine, full of interesting discussion and book recommendations. Recent episodes include a life in writing with Margaret Drabble, the shocking story of Charles and Mary Lamb, a feast of food writing with Olivia Potts, the Golden Age of crime writing, the works of Barbara Pym with her biographer Paula Byrne and much more besides. With 48 episodes released to date the podcast has had 700,000+ all-time listens. You can hear all available episodes on the website or by searching for ‘Slightly Foxed’ on iTunes, Spotify or other podcast platforms. https://foxedquarterly.com/the-slightly-foxed-podcast-all-episodes
- Produced in England: Slightly Foxed magazine and all of the company’s books are printed and bound in the UK by traditional printers and book-binders. Watch a short film here: ‘Birth of a Book’ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iuFV5196dYQ
For more information about Slightly Foxed or the Prize, or for interview requests, please do get in touch