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
|
|
2006
|
Daniel Mendelsohn
|
The Lost: A Search for Six of Six Million
|
Winner
|
|
2007
|
Edwidge Danticat
|
Brother, I'm Dying
|
Winner
|
[4][5][6]
|
Joshua Clark
|
Heart Like Water: Surviving Katrina and Life in Its Disaster Zone
|
Finalist
|
[5]
|
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
|
[7]
|
Honor Moore
|
The Bishop's Daughter
|
Finalist
|
[8][7]
|
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
|
[9][10][11]
|
Edmund White
|
City Boy
|
Finalist
|
[9]
|
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
|
[12][13]
|
Kai Bird
|
Crossing Mandelbaum Gate Coming of Age Between the Arabs and Israelis, 1956-1978
|
Finalist
|
[12]
|
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
|
[14][15]
|
Sharifa Rhodes-Pitts
|
Harlem is Nowhere: A Journey to the Mecca of Black America
|
Finalist
|
[14][16][15]
|
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
|
[17][18]
|
Anthony Shadid
|
House of Stone: A Memoir of Home, Family, and a Lost Middle East
|
Finalist
|
[19][20][17]
|
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
|
[21][22]
|
Jesmyn Ward
|
Men We Reaped
|
Finalist
|
[21][23]
|
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
|
[24][25]
|
Gary Shteyngart
|
Little Failure
|
Finalist
|
[26][24]
|
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
|
[27]
|
George Hodgman
|
Bettyville
|
Finalist
|
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
|
[28]
|
Jenny Diski
|
In Gratitude
|
Finalist
|
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
|
[29][30][31]
|
Henry Marsh
|
Admissions: Life as a Brain Surgeon
|
Finalist
|
[32][29]
|
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
|
[33][34][35][36]
|
Nicole Chung
|
All You Can Ever Know: A Memoir
|
Finalist
|
[33]
|
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
|
[37][38]
|
Ronan Farrow
|
Catch and Kill: Lies, Spies, and a Conspiracy to Protect Predators
|
Finalist
|
[37]
|
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
|
[39][40][41]
|
Riva Lehrer
|
Golem Girl
|
Finalist
|
[40]
|
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
|
[42]
|
Rodrigo Garcia
|
A Farewell To Gabo And Mercedes: A Son's Memoir of Gabriel García Márquez and Mercedes Barcha
|
Finalist
|
[43][44][45]
|
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
|
[46]
|
Jazmina Barrera
|
Linea Nigra: An Essay on Pregnancy and Earthquakes
|
Finalist
|
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
|
[47]
|
Susan Kiyo Ito
|
I Would Meet You Anywhere: A Memoir
|
Finalist
|
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
|