Sierra Leonean artist Neneh Cherry’s memoir A Thousand Threads (Scribner) is among six titles on the shortlist for the 2025 Women’s Prize for Nonfiction!

A Thousand Threads tells the story of the Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter’s fascinating life. Her career is an inspiration that celebrates female empowerment. This memoir also provides insight into the global music scene, a treat for everyone interested in global music or knowing more about an artist’s world. From the publisher:

Born in Sweden in 1964, Neneh Cherry’s father Ahmadu was a musician from Sierra Leone. Her mother, Moki, was a twenty-one-year-old Swedish textile artist. Her parents split up just after Neneh was born, and not long afterwards Moki met and fell in love with acclaimed jazz musician Don Cherry. Eventually, the strong pull New York City in the 1970s drew him them there, but they made a home wherever they traveled. Neneh and her brother Eagle-Eye experienced a life of creativity, freedom, and, of course, music.

In A Thousand Threads, Neneh takes readers from the charming old schoolhouse in the woods of Sweden where she grew up, to the village in Sierra Leone that was birthplace of her biological father, to the early punk scene in London and New York, to finding her identity with her stepfather’s family in Watts, California. Neneh has lived an extraordinary life of connectivity and creativity and she recounts in intimate detail how she burst onto the scene as a teenager in the punk band The Slits, and went on to release her first album in 1989 with a worldwide hit single “Buffalo Stance.”

The Women’s Prize for Non-Fiction is an annual book prize that celebrates exceptional narrative non-fiction by women around the world who are published in the UK and writing in English. The Prize promotes excellence in writing, robust research, original narrative voices and accessibility, showcasing women’s expertise across a range of fields. The winner, to be announced on June 12, 2025 at the Women’s Prize Trust’s summer party in central London, will receive a check for £30,000 and a limited-edition artwork known as the ‘Charlotte’, both gifted by the Charlotte Aitken Trust.

Congratulations to Neneh Cherry!