The Wainwright Prize · award year
Wainwright Prize 2023
The 2023 Wainwright Prize went to Leila and the Blue Fox by Kiran Millwood Hargrave (Children's Writing on Nature and Conservation), The Flow: Rivers, Water and Wildness by Amy-Jane Beer (Nature Writing) and The Lost Rainforests of Britain by Guy Shrubsole (Writing on Conservation). 18 books made the shortlist and 36 the longlist across 3 categories.
Winners
Children's Writing on Nature and Conservation
- Leila and the Blue Foxsource (opens in a new tab)
Nature Writing
- The Flow: Rivers, Water and Wildnesssource (opens in a new tab)
Writing on Conservation
- The Lost Rainforests of Britainsource (opens in a new tab)
Shortlist
Children's Writing on Nature and Conservation
- A Wild Child's Book of Birdssource (opens in a new tab)
- Blobfishsource (opens in a new tab)
- Grandpa and the Kingfishersource (opens in a new tab)
- Protecting the Planet: The Season of Giraffessource (opens in a new tab)
- Sparksource (opens in a new tab)
Nature Writing
- A Line in the World: A Year on the North Sea Coastsource (opens in a new tab)
- Belonging: Natural Histories of Place, Identity and Homesource (opens in a new tab)
- Ten Birds That Changed the Worldsource (opens in a new tab)
- The Golden Mole: And Other Living Treasuresource (opens in a new tab)
- Twelve Words for Mosssource (opens in a new tab)
Writing on Conservation
- Beastly: A New History of Animals and Ussource (opens in a new tab)
- Black Ops and Beaver Bombing: Adventures with Britain's Wild Mammalssource (opens in a new tab)
- Nomad Century: How to Survive the Climate Upheavalsource (opens in a new tab)
- Rewilding the Sea: How to Save Our Oceanssource (opens in a new tab)
- Rooted: How Regenerative Farming Can Change the Worldsource (opens in a new tab)
Longlist
Children's Writing on Nature and Conservation
- A Friend to Naturesource (opens in a new tab)
- Archie's Applesource (opens in a new tab)
- Billy Conker's Nature-Spotting Adventuresource (opens in a new tab)
- The Earth Booksource (opens in a new tab)
- The Light in Everythingsource (opens in a new tab)
- The Zebra's Great Escapesource (opens in a new tab)
Nature Writing
- Cacophony of Bonesource (opens in a new tab)
- Landlinessource (opens in a new tab)
- Sea Beansource (opens in a new tab)
- The Swimmer: The Wild Life of Roger Deakinsource (opens in a new tab)
- Where the Wildflowers Growsource (opens in a new tab)
- Why Women Grow: Stories of Soil, Sisterhood and Survivalsource (opens in a new tab)
Writing on Conservation
- Birdgirlsource (opens in a new tab)
- Elixir: In the Valley at the End of Timesource (opens in a new tab)
- Fen, Bog and Swamp: A Short History of Peatland Destruction and Its Role in the Climate Crisissource (opens in a new tab)
- Forget Me Notsource (opens in a new tab)
- Sarn Helen: A Journey Through Wales, Past, Present and Futuresource (opens in a new tab)
- The Orchid Outlawsource (opens in a new tab)
About the Wainwright Prize
Wainwright Prize, 2014-2025, every book category. Year is the prize year the body uses (shortlist in summer, winner announced in August/September). Categories as the body names them: Nature Writing (the only category 2014-2019, then called the Wainwright Golden Beer Book Prize for nature and UK travel writing); Writing on Global Conservation (2020-2021), Writing on Conservation (2022-2024) and Conservation Writing (2025) are the same strand under its successive names; Children's Writing on Nature and Conservation (2022-2024); from 2025 Illustrative Books, Children's Fiction, Children's Non-Fiction and Children's Picture Books. Levels: Winner, Shortlist (rest of the shortlist, including highly commended books), Longlist (longlisted, not shortlisted). The 2025 overall Book of the Year awards went to category winners and are not separate rows. Sources: wainwrightprize.com news posts and the 2025 shortlist page. Longlists are included only for 2021-2025, where the body's pages still list them; earlier longlists (2016-2020) were announced but those pages are gone, so those years have winner and shortlist only. 2014-2017 winner and shortlists come from Wikipedia's Wainwright Prize article (fallback), because the body's shortlist pages for those years return 404 and web.archive.org was unreachable from this machine. Authors only: illustrators credited with 'illustrated by' are left out; co-creators the body credits with 'and/&' are joined with ' and '. Expected counts are the books on the longlist page where one exists, otherwise the shortlist page.
Organization: The Wainwright Prize. Years are award years, which can differ from publication years. Official site (opens in a new tab)
Shares the most books with
- British Book Awards 11 shared books
- Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction 9 shared books
- Goodreads Choice Awards 8 shared books
- Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence 6 shared books