Tania Branigan takes home Cundill History Prize for book on Cultural Revolution

 The Canadian Press

MONTREAL — Guardian journalist Tania Branigan's debut book about China's deadly Cultural Revolution has won the US$75,000 Cundill History Prize.

Branigan received the award for "Red Memory: Living, Remembering and Forgetting China’s Cultural Revolution" at a gala in Montreal on Wednesday evening.

Jurors describe the book as a "haunting" account of the trauma endured by those who survived Mao Zedong's power grab in the mid-20th century.

Branigan beat out Kate Cooper's "Queens of a Fallen World: The Lost Women of Augustine’s Confessions," which recounts the stories of the women who shaped Christian philosopher St. Augustine, and "Charged: A History of Batteries and Lessons for a Clean Energy Future" by James Morton Turner, which looks to the past in an effort to solve "the battery problem."

The prestigious award, which is run by McGill University, recognizes non-fiction history writing in English.

The two runners-up each received US$10,000.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 8, 2023.