Australian author Helen Garner has been named the winner of the 2025 Baillie Gifford prize for nonfiction for How to End a Story, becoming the first writer to win the prestigious award with a collection of diaries.
The announcement of the £50,000 award was made on Tuesday evening at a ceremony in London. Robbie Millen, chair of judges and the literary editor of the Times, described Garner’s collection as “a remarkable, addictive book,” and said the decision had been unanimous among the six judges. “Garner takes the diary form – mixing the intimate, the intellectual, and the everyday – to new heights.”
