Craig Brown’s One Two Three Four: The Beatles in Time wins 2020 Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction

Craig Brown is tonight named the winner of the £50,000 Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction 2020 for One Two Three Four: The Beatles in Time published by 4th Estate. If you missed the watch party this evening you can watch the full event here.

In One Two Three Four, Craig Brown creates an entirely new form of biography. He captures the serendipities that brought the fab four together and catapulted them to world fame, as well as telling the story of those who came into their orbit, giving a vivid and revealing insight into the world of the swinging 60s.

 

Craig said in an interview for The Baillie Gifford Prize website that his aim was to convey the fun and excitement of the Beatles’ era, and felt that this would be best conveyed in a multiplicity of short chapters juxtaposed like prisms, to form a kaleidoscope.

Craig Brown is the author of 18 books, and a prolific journalist. He has been writing his parodic diary in Private Eye since 1989. He’s the only person ever to have won three different Press Awards – for best humorist, columnist and critic – in the same year. He has been a columnist for, among others, The Guardian, The Times, The Spectator and The Daily Telegraph. He currently writes for The Daily Mail and The Mail on Sunday. His last book, Ma’am Darling: 99 Glimpses of Princess Margaret won an international bestseller and won the James Tait Black Memorial Award and the South Bank Sky Arts Literature Award.

Don’t forget to sign up for the Hay Festival Digital Weekend from 26-29 November. This year’s festival includes an event with 2020 Baillie Gifford Prize winner Craig Brown. To see the full programme and register for free click here.

The podcast series and awards ceremony is generously supported by the Blavatnik Family Foundation.

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