NCR Book Award


The NCR Book Award for Non-Fiction, established in 1987 and sponsored by NCR Corporation, was for a time the UK's major award for non-fiction. Closing in 1997 after a period of decline and scandal, it is best remembered as the forerunner of the Samuel Johnson Prize.

History

The award was founded at a time when there were no major non-fiction awards in Britain comparable to the highly successful Booker Prize for fiction. It was part of a new "golden age" of non-fiction that started in the 1980s, according to Antony Beevor. In the early 1990s, NCR was acquired by AT&T and the award became rudderless and dated; one critic said the "NCR spoke volumes of the Thatcherised values of contemporary English culturea winner-takes-all triumphalism, a boastful indifference to good writing, a corresponding obsession with design and presentation". In 1997, the award experienced an existential scandal when it was revealed the judges had used "professional readers", summaries and book reviews instead of reading all of the entries. In response, one of the previous winners, Peter Hennessy, approached Penguin with the idea for a new award, and an anonymous benefactor was found who funded the establishment of the Samuel Johnson Prize. Facing bad publicity and a tarnished reputation, the NCR Award closed out with A People's Tragedy in 1997.

Winners

Source 1988–1995: