The annual Baifang Schell Book Prize celebrates exceptional book-length works on or from China and the Sinophone world, published in English. The prize is administered by China Books Review, with an awards ceremony at Asia Society in New York. Winners are announced in two categories, each accompanied by a $10,000 cash prize:
- Award for Outstanding Nonfiction Book on China or the Sinophone World
- Award for Outstanding Translated Literature from Chinese Language — shared between author and translator(s)
For each year’s awards, books published in the previous calendar year are considered by two independent juries of five respected China scholars, writers and experts. Nominations are open from November each year, with shortlists announced in April and the winners (and honorable mentions) announced in May.
The prize is named in honor of Liu Baifang Schell, who passed in 2021 after spending her life working to advance U.S.-China relations.
Nominations for the 2025 awards will be open from November 1 – December 15, 2024. Guidelines for nominating books, and the list of jury members, will be published in November. The 2024 guidelines and rules can be seen in the FAQ section here.
Past winners
2024 awards
Announcement links: Jury members; nonfiction shortlist; fiction shortlist; winners; ceremony.
Nonfiction winner: Edward Wong, At the Edge of Empire: A Family’s Reckoning with China (Viking, June 2024).
Translated literature winner: Yáng Shuāng-zǐ (author) and Lin King (translator), Taiwan Travelogue: A Novel (Graywolf Press, November 2024).