The Biographers International Organization has unveiled the longlist for its 2025 Plutarch Award, given annually to an outstanding biography.
Cynthia Carr made the longlist for Candy Darling: Dreamer, Icon, Superstar, her biography of the transgender actor, Andy Warhol “superstar,” and inspiration for the pioneering rock band the Velvet Underground. The book is also shortlisted for a National Book Critics Circle Award.
Max Boot was nominated for Reagan: His Life and Legend, which chronicles the life of former President Ronald Reagan, alongside Margalit Fox for The Talented Mrs. Mandelbaum: The Rise and Fall of an American Organized-Crime Boss, Stephanie Gorton for The Icon & the Idealist: Margaret Sanger, Mary Ware Dennett, and the Rivalry That Brought Birth Control to America, David Greenberg for John Lewis: A Life, and Alexis Pauline Gumbs for Survival Is A Promise: The Eternal Life of Audre Lorde.
Also making the longlist were Lucy Hughes-Hallet for The Scapegoat: The Brilliant Brief Life of the Duke of Buckingham, Heath Hardage Lee for The Mysterious Mrs. Nixon: The Life and Times of Washington’s Most Private First Lady, Adam Shatz for The Rebel’s Clinic: The Revolutionary Lives of Frantz Fanon, and Jackie Wullschläger for Monet: The Restless Vision.
The Plutarch Prize was first awarded in 2013. Previous winners include Hermione Lee for Penelope Fitzgerald: A Life, Caroline Fraser for Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder, and Jennifer Homans for Mr. B: George Balanchine’s 20th Century.
The winner of this year’s prize will be announced in early June.
Michael Schaub is a contributing writer.
