| Year |
Author |
Title |
Result |
Ref. |
| 1983 |
Joyce Johnson |
Minor Characters |
Winner |
|
| 1984 |
Joseph Frank |
Dostoevsky: The Years of Ordeal, 1850–1859 |
Winner |
|
| 1985 |
Leon Edel |
Henry James: A Life |
Winner |
|
| 1986 |
Arnold Rampersad |
The Life of Langston Hughes, Vol. I: 1902-1941 |
Winner |
|
| 1987 |
Donald R. Howard |
Chaucer: His Life, His Works, His World |
Winner |
|
| 1988 |
Richard Ellmann |
Oscar Wilde |
Winner |
|
| 1989 |
Geoffrey C. Ward |
A First-Class Temperament: The Emergence of Franklin Roosevelt |
Winner |
|
| 1990 |
Robert A. Caro |
Means of Ascent: The Years of Lyndon Johnson, Vol. II |
Winner |
|
| 1991 |
Philip Roth |
Patrimony: A True Story |
Winner |
|
| 1992 |
Carol Brightman |
Writing Dangerously: Mary McCarthy and Her World |
Winner |
|
| 1993 |
Edmund White |
Genet |
Winner |
|
| 1994 |
Mikal Gilmore |
Shot in the Heart |
Winner |
|
| 1995 |
Robert Polito |
Savage Art: A Biography of Jim Thompson |
Winner |
|
| 1996 |
Frank McCourt |
Angela's Ashes |
Winner |
|
| 1997 |
James Tobin |
Ernie Pyle's War: America's Eyewitness to World War II |
Winner |
|
| 1998 |
Sylvia Nasar |
A Beautiful Mind |
Winner |
|
| 1999 |
Henry Wiencek |
The Hairstons: An American Family in Black and White |
Winner |
|
| 2000 |
Herbert P. Bix |
Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan |
Winner |
|
| 2001 |
Adam Sisman |
Boswell's Presumptuous Task: The Making of the Life of Dr.Johnson |
Winner |
|
| 2002 |
Janet Browne |
Charles Darwin: The Power of Place, Vol. II |
Winner |
|
| 2003 |
William Taubman |
Khrushchev: The Man and His Era |
Winner |
|
| 2004 |
Mark Stevens and Annalyn Swan |
De Kooning: An American Master |
Winner |
|
| 2005 |
Francine du Plessix Gray |
Them: A Memoir of Parents |
Winner |
[4] |
| 2006 |
Daniel Mendelsohn |
The Lost: A Search for Six of Six Million |
Winner |
|
| 2007 |
Edwidge Danticat |
Brother, I'm Dying |
Winner |
[5][6][7] |
|
Joshua Clark |
Heart Like Water: Surviving Katrina and Life in Its Disaster Zone |
Finalist |
[8] |
|
Anna Politkovskaya |
Russian Diary: A Journalist's Final Account of Life, Corruption and Death in Putin's Russia |
|
Joyce Carol Oates |
The Journals of Joyce Carol Oates, 1973–1982 |
|
Sara Paretsky |
Writing in an Age of Silence |
| 2008 |
Ariel Sabar |
My Father's Paradise: A Son's Search for His Jewish Past in Kurdish Iraq |
Winner |
[9] |
|
Honor Moore |
The Bishop's Daughter |
Finalist |
[10][11] |
|
Andrew X. Pham |
The Eaves of Heaven |
|
Helene Cooper |
The House on Sugar Beach |
|
Rick Bass |
Why I Came West |
| 2009 |
Diana Athill |
Somewhere Towards the End |
Winner |
[12][13][14] |
|
Edmund White |
City Boy |
Finalist |
[12] |
|
Kati Marton |
Enemies of the People: My Family's Journey to America |
|
Mary Karr |
Lit |
|
Debra Gwartney |
Live Through This: A Mother's Memoir of Runaway Daughters and Reclaimed Love |
| 2010 |
Darin Strauss |
Half a Life |
Winner |
[15][16] |
|
Kai Bird |
Crossing Mandelbaum Gate Coming of Age Between the Arabs and Israelis, 1956-1978 |
Finalist |
[17] |
|
Rahna Reiko Rizzuto |
Hiroshima in the Morning |
|
Christopher Hitchens |
Hitch-22: A Memoir |
|
Patti Smith |
Just Kids |
|
David Dow |
The Autobiography of an Execution |
| 2011 |
Mira Bartók |
The Memory Palace |
Winner |
[18][19] |
|
Sharifa Rhodes-Pitts |
Harlem is Nowhere: A Journey to the Mecca of Black America |
Finalist |
[20][21][19] |
|
Luis J. Rodriguez |
It Calls You Back: An Odyssey through Love, Addiction, Revolutions, and Healing |
|
Diane Ackerman |
One Hundred Names for Love: A Stroke, a Marriage, and the Language of Healing |
|
Deb Olin Unferth |
Revolution: The Year I Fell in Love and Went to Join the War |
| 2012 |
Leanne Shapton |
Swimming Studies |
Winner |
[22][23] |
|
Anthony Shadid |
House of Stone: A Memoir of Home, Family, and a Lost Middle East |
Finalist |
[24][25][22] |
|
Ngugi wa Thiong’o |
In the House of the Interpreter |
|
Maureen N. McLane |
My Poets |
|
Reyna Grande |
The Distance Between Us |
| 2013 |
Amy Wilentz |
Farewell, Fred Voodoo: A Letter From Haiti |
Winner |
[26][27] |
|
Jesmyn Ward |
Men We Reaped |
Finalist |
[28][29] |
|
Aleksandar Hemon |
The Book of My Lives |
|
Rebecca Solnit |
The Faraway Nearby |
|
Sonali Deraniyagala |
Wave |
| 2014 |
Roz Chast |
Can't We Talk About Something More Pleasant? |
Winner |
[30][31] |
|
Gary Shteyngart |
Little Failure |
Finalist |
[32][33] |
|
Lacy M. Johnson |
The Other Side |
|
Blake Bailey |
The Splendid Things We Planned: A Family Portrait |
|
Meline Toumani |
There Was and There Was Not |
| 2015 |
Margo Jefferson |
Negroland: A Memoir |
Winner |
[34] |
|
George Hodgman |
Bettyville |
Finalist |
[35] |
|
Helen Macdonald |
H is for Hawk |
|
Elizabeth Alexander |
The Light of the World |
|
Vivian Gornick |
The Odd Woman and the City |
| 2016 |
Hope Jahren |
Lab Girl |
Winner |
[36] |
|
Jenny Diski |
In Gratitude |
Finalist |
[37] |
|
Marion Coutts |
The Iceberg |
|
Hisham Matar |
The Return: Fathers, Sons and the Land in Between |
|
Kao Kalia Yang |
The Song Poet: A Memoir of My Father |
| 2017 |
Xiaolu Guo |
Nine Continents: A Memoir In and Out of China |
Winner |
[38][39] |
|
Henry Marsh |
Admissions: Life as a Brain Surgeon |
Finalist |
[40][41] |
|
Roxane Gay |
Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body |
|
Thi Bui |
The Best We Could Do: An Illustrated Memoir |
|
Ludmilla Petrushevskaya |
The Girl From the Metropol Hotel: Growing Up in Communist Russia |
| 2018 |
Nora Krug |
Belonging: A German Reckons With History and Home |
Winner |
[42][43][44][45] |
|
Nicole Chung |
All You Can Ever Know: A Memoir |
Finalist |
[42] |
|
Tara Westover |
Educated: A Memoir |
|
Nell Painter |
Old in Art School: A Memoir of Starting Over |
|
Richard Beard |
The Day That Went Missing: A Family's Story |
|
Rigoberto Gonzalez |
What Drowns the Flowers in Your Mouth: A Memoir of Brotherhood |
| 2019 |
Chanel Miller |
Know My Name: A Memoir |
Winner |
[46][47] |
|
Ronan Farrow |
Catch and Kill: Lies, Spies, and a Conspiracy to Protect Predators |
Finalist |
[48] |
|
Laura Cumming |
Five Days Gone: The Mystery of My Mother's Disappearance as a Child |
|
Mira Jacob |
Good Talk: A Memoir in Conversations |
|
Jessica Chiccehitto Hindman |
Sounds Like Titanic: A Memoir |
| 2020 |
Cathy Park Hong |
Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning |
Winner |
[49][50][51] |
|
Riva Lehrer |
Golem Girl |
Finalist |
[52] |
|
Alia Volz |
Home Baked: My Mom, Marijuana, and the Stoning of San Francisco |
|
Wayétu Moore |
The Dragons, The Giant, The Women |
|
Shayla Lawson |
This Is Major: Notes on Diana Ross, Dark Girls, and Being Dope |
| 2021 |
Jeremy Atherton Lin |
Gay Bar: Why We Went Out |
Winner |
[53][54] |
|
Rodrigo Garcia |
A Farewell To Gabo And Mercedes: A Son's Memoir of Gabriel García Márquez and Mercedes Barcha |
Finalist |
[55][56][57] |
|
Doireann Ní Ghríofa |
A Ghost in the Throat |
|
Hanif Abdurraqib |
A Little Devil in America: Notes in Praise of Black Performance |
|
Albert Samaha |
Concepcion: An Immigrant Family's Fortunes |
| 2022 |
Hua Hsu |
Stay True: A Memoir |
Winner |
[58] |
|
Jazmina Barrera |
Linea Nigra: An Essay on Pregnancy and Earthquakes |
Finalist |
[59] |
|
Dorthe Nors |
A Line in the World: A Year on the North Sea Coast |
|
Darryl Pinckney |
Come Back in September: A Literary Education on West Sixty-Seventh Street, Manhattan |
|
Ingrid Rojas Contreras |
The Man Who Could Move Clouds: A Memoir |
| 2023 |
Safiya Sinclair |
How to Say Babylon: A Memoir |
Winner |
[60] |
|
Susan Kiyo Ito |
I Would Meet You Anywhere: A Memoir |
Finalist |
[61] |
|
David Mas Masumoto |
Secret Harvests: A Hidden Story of Separation and the Resilience of a Family Farm |
|
Ahmed Naji |
Rotten Evidence: Reading and Writing in an Egyptian Prison |
|
Matthew Zapruder |
Story of a Poem: A Memoir |
| 2024 |
Alexei Navalny (trans. Arch Tait with Stephen Dalziel) |
Patriot: A Memoir |
Winner |
[62][63] |
| Zito Madu |
The Minotaur at Calle Lanza |
Finalist |
[64] |
| Manjula Martin |
The Last Fire Season: A Personal and Pyronatural History |
| Erika Morillo |
Mother Archive: A Dominican Family Memoir |
| Wei Tchou |
Little Seed |