Baillie Gifford Prize Winner 2025

I am beyond thrilled that Helen Garner has won the 2025 Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction for her collected diaries How to End a Story (2025). Having read this brilliant collection, Garner is so deserving of this award. 

The prestigious prize, worth £50,000, is the UK's top award for works of non-fiction.  The judges said “Garner’s candid, pacey diary chronicles the end of her second marriage and the challenges of being a writer. There is a skilled narrative drive which presents a lot of personal material that keeps you hooked, not necessarily on what is happening in terms of the story, but about Garner's whole life and about what's going on outside her window.” I could not agree more! She is a keen observer and these diaries are an intimate insight into her life, loves and work. 

The collected diaries were published in Australia as three seperate volumes (my reviews are linked):

• The Yellow Notebook (2019) covers the years 1978-1987 when she has just published her debut novel, Monkey Grip, and was on the verge of success but full of self-doubt.  
• One Day I'll Remember This (2020) spans 1987-1995 when Garner has relocated to Sydney after the end of her marriage, has begun an affair with another writer, and is experiencing the early stages of menopause.
• How to End a Story (2021) is about the period 1995-1998 when Garner is married to another author and struggles to find a way to live and work alongside him. 

Each of these diaries showcases Garner's incredible talent as an author. I love her frankness and vulnerability. She is wise and unapologetic. I hope that one day she published further instalments as so much has happened in the past 25 years.