Nothing to Envy by Barbara Demick wins Samuel Johnson Prize for non-fiction

01 July 2010

The 2010 Samuel Johnson Prize for non-fiction was won this evening by the foreign correspondent Barbara Demick for her fascinating account of six people's lives in North Korea.

Nothing to Envy: Real Lives in North Korea, which takes its title from a song taught religiously to all North Korean school children is described by Evan Davies as 'the clear winner' due to its novel like narrative that is, 'gripping, moving and informative'.  

Barbara Demick modestly says she is 'not a writer' that she merely had to listen to the stories and weave them together. That is the immense achievement of this book. Barbara Demick is a journalist based in Beijing and was unable to attend the ceremony. Accepting the award through a friend , her work was acclaimed for managing to show ' the ordinary North Korean people' that we tend to think of in 'pixels', as real people who live and love under the 'most unbelievable stress'.

Evan Davies also gave specific credit to Alex Bellos' mathematical genius' Alex Adventures in Numberland, which he believes everyone must read in order to dispel the fears they have about maths and wished he had available to him when he was 16.

133 submissions were placed for the 2010 Samuel Johnson award and a long list of nineteen books were announced in April. The panel of judges was chaired by Evan Davies, presenter of Radio 4's 'Today programme', and 'Dragons Den'. From the nineteen titles that reached the long list, only six books were shortlisted. The heady list of topics ranged from evolution, cooking, the crash, the restoration, numbers, fishing and North Korea.  

The award ceremony took place this evening at the Royal Institute of British Architecture and was televised on BBC 2's The Culture Show, hosted by presenter and British art historian Andrew Graham Dixon.

The Samuel Johnson prize, named after the celebrated lexicographer Dr Samuel Johnson, is the most esteemed prize for non-fiction, is open to any nationality, and is now in its eleventh year. It is funded by an anonymous donation, with the winning entry receiving £20,000 and £1000 prizes given to the other shortlisted authors. Previous winners include:

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