Patriot

Alexei Navalny, translated by Arch Tait & Stephen Dalziel

The Bodley Head

The final judging panel crowned the Non-Fiction Narrative Book of the Year winner, Patriot, as The British Book Awards’ Overall Book of the Year. They agreed it is an “important” book that “embodies the values it is trying to promote: freedom of speech, defiance and humour”. For our panel, Patriot is “everything that literature and political memoirs should be”.

Our judges thought that the “care with which The Bodley Head treated this story was amazing”, executing an “extraordinary strategy” that expertly positioned Patriot in the press and beyond. Only five people at the publisher had read Navalny’s story before publication and our panel saluted this dedication to secrecy and safety.

The discussion was chaired by The Bookseller’s books editor Alice O’Keeffe and the judges comprised Katherine Rundell, writer; Johanna Thomas-Corr, chief literary critic at the Times; Mary Portas, businesswoman and broadcaster; Bea Carvalho, head of books at Waterstones; Joel Rochester, @fictionalfates creative and writer; and Nihal Arthanayake, presenter and author. Ultimately, our panel felt Patriot is a much-needed testament to resistance and stands as the book of 2024 as a “bulwark against dishonesty and fascism”.