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The Burning Earth: A History of Fire and Humanity
Sunil AmrithDayton Literary · 2025 · Winner
The Burning Earth by Sunil Amrith won the Dayton Literary Peace Prize for Nonfiction in 2025.
Dayton Literary Peace Prize – Nonfiction
2025 Winner
Complete History
2020s
- 2025The Burning Earth: A History of Fire and Humanity — Sunil Amrith
- 2024Built from the Fire: The Epic Story of Tulsa's Greenwood District, America's Black Wall Street — Victor Luckerson
- 2023His Name Is George Floyd: One Man's Life and the Struggle for Racial Justice — Robert Samuels
- 2022How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America — Clint Smith
- 2021When Time Stopped: A Memoir of My Father's War and What Remains — Ariana Neumann
- 2020Know My Name — Chanel Miller
2010s
- 2019Rising Out of Hatred: The Awakening of a Former White Nationalist — Eli Saslow
- 2018We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy — Ta-Nehisi Coates
- 2017What Have We Done: The Moral Injury of Our Longest Wars — David Wood
- 2016Nagasaki: Life After Nuclear War — Susan Southard
- 2015Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption — Bryan Stevenson
- 2014Strength in What Remains — Tracy Kidder
- 2013Far From the Tree: Parents, Children, and the Search for Identity — Andrew Solomon
- 2012To End All Wars: A Story of Loyalty and Rebellion, 1914-1918 — Adam Hochschild
- 2011In the Place of Justice: A Story of Punishment and Deliverance — Wilbert Rideau
- 2010Zeitoun — Dave Eggers
About the Dayton Literary Peace Prize – Nonfiction
The Dayton Literary Peace Prize – Nonfiction honours the best work of nonfiction that uses literature to promote peace, justice, and cross-cultural understanding. Established in 2006 and presented alongside its Fiction counterpart, the Nonfiction prize recognises journalism, memoir, history, and essay writing that illuminates the human cost of conflict and the enduring effort to build more just societies. The prize was created in the spirit of the 1995 Dayton Peace Accords, connecting Dayton, Ohio's peacebuilding legacy to the world of letters. Past nonfiction winners represent some of the most significant and widely read American nonfiction of the past decade: Bryan Stevenson's Just Mercy (2015), Ta-Nehisi Coates's We Were Eight Years in Power (2018), Chanel Miller's Know My Name (2020), Clint Smith's How the Word Is Passed (2022), and Robert Samuels and Toluse Olorunnipa's His Name Is George Floyd (2023). The prize is administered by the Dayton Literary Peace Prize Foundation and judged by a panel of literary and academic figures. Both the fiction and nonfiction winners are celebrated at an annual gala in Dayton that draws writers, scholars, peace advocates, and community leaders. The nonfiction prize has become a reliable guide to the most important and morally serious nonfiction of each year—books that combine extraordinary reporting or personal narrative with a commitment to understanding and healing.
Frequently Asked Questions
- All forms of literary nonfiction are eligible, including memoir, narrative journalism, history, essay collections, and reportage, provided they engage meaningfully with themes of peace, justice, conflict, or reconciliation.
- The prize was founded in Dayton in honour of the city's role as the site of the 1995 Dayton Peace Accords, which ended the Bosnian War. The prize honours literature that carries forward the spirit of those negotiations.
- A panel of literary and academic judges reviews submitted titles and selects a winner and a runner-up in each category. The composition of the judging panel changes from year to year.
- Yes. The Nonfiction winner receives a cash prize, typically around $10,000, and the runner-up also receives a smaller award.
- Yes. Works published in the United States—including books by non-American authors—are eligible. The prize focuses on the content and themes of the work rather than the nationality of the author.
- While scholarly works are eligible, the prize tends to favour books written for a general audience that combine literary quality with accessible, compelling narrative or argument.
- The ceremony is held annually in Dayton, Ohio, typically in the autumn. Both the Fiction and Nonfiction prizes are presented at the same gala event.