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Shapiro, professor of English and comparative literature at Columbia College, was awarded the 25,000-pound ($31,000) prize at a celebratory dinner in Edinburgh, Scotland.
Launched in 1999 and recognized till 2015 because the Samuel Johnson Prize, the award celebrates English-language books from any nation within the fields of present affairs, historical past, politics, science, sport, journey, biography, autobiography and the humanities. It has been credited with bringing an eclectic slate of nonfiction books to a wider viewers.
Shapiro’s e book, which received the prize in 2006, explores Shakespeare’s life in teeming Tudor London within the 12 months he turned 35, accomplished “Henry V,” wrote “Julius Caesar” and “As You Like It” and produced the primary draft of “Hamlet,” extensively considered his best play.
Creator and tutorial Sarah Churchwell, one of many 4 prize judges, mentioned Shapiro’s e book “does so many issues remarkably effectively.”
It’s “a biography of one of many best writers who ever lived, about whom we all know virtually nothing,” she mentioned, and “a biography of the thoughts of a genius at work.”
Churchwell mentioned the judges “felt it was vital the e book that received confirmed what inventive nonfiction can do.”
“1599” beat 5 different books, together with British author Craig Brown’s “One Two Three 4: The Beatles in Time,” Canadian writer Wade Davis’ mountaineering odyssey “Into the Silence” and Canadian Margaret MacMillan’s historical past of the post-World Battle I peace talks, “Paris 1919.”
The 2 different finalists had been American: Barbara Demick, for “Nothing to Envy: Actual Lives in North Korea,” and Patrick Radden Keefe for opioid expose “Empire of Ache: The Secret Historical past of the Sackler Dynasty.”
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