MONTREAL — Today, at the Cundill History Prize Festival in Montreal, the jurors awarded the prestigious 2026 Cundill History Prize, which celebrates “outstanding history writing,” to John Doe Chinaman: A Forgotten History of Chinese Life under American Racial Law by Beth Lew-Williams.
The announcement, made during the prominent international literary and historical festival held annually in Canada, places Lew-Williams’s deeply researched book at the very pinnacle of contemporary historical scholarship. The Cundill History Prize is widely recognized as one of the world’s most lucrative and significant international awards for non-fiction historical literature, drawing submissions from top scholars and university presses globally.
In John Doe Chinaman, Beth Lew-Williams unravels the paradoxes of anti-Chinese racial laws in the American West from the 1850s to the 1920s, analysing the intentions of these laws, their effects, and how Chinese migrants responded to them, said jury chair Emily Greenwood.
The book delves into a critical, yet frequently overlooked, era of North American history, charting how legal frameworks were deliberately constructed and weaponized against immigrant populations during a formative period of western expansion and national development. By focusing on the decades spanning from the mid-nineteenth century through the early twentieth century, Lew-Williams captures a turbulent chapter characterized by intense social upheaval, labor disputes, and sweeping legislative restrictions targeting Chinese communities.
These laws were part of a larger racial regime, one of whose consequences was to contain and suppress the lives of Chinese migrants, reducing them to anonymous stereotypes—the “John Doe Chinaman” of the title. Using a supple combination of data algorithms to process legal and bureaucratic records and trenchant storytelling, Lew-Williams documents the ghosting of these lives in the historical record, retrieving Chinese voices that show us some of what we are missing. This is a dazzlingly innovative and hard-hitting work, Greenwood noted while presenting the award.
The methodological approach highlighted by the jury sets Lew-Williams’s work apart in the field of historical research. By blending cutting-edge technological tools—specifically data algorithms capable of parsing massive archives of legal documents and bureaucratic paperwork—with traditional, compelling narrative craft, the author breathes new life into historical records that were designed to obscure individual identities. The result is a rigorous academic achievement that manages to unearth poignant, authentic human experiences from beneath layers of institutional discrimination and historical erasure.
As the winner of the 2026 competition, Lew-Williams will be awarded $75,000, a substantial purse that underscores the prize’s commitment to supporting major works of historical research and writing. Meanwhile, the fellow finalists in this year’s rigorous competition, Jonathan Cheng and Alexander Lee, will each take home $10,000 in recognition of their own acclaimed contributions to historical literature.
The Cundill History Prize Festival continues to draw international acclaim for its dedication to championing books that translate complex historical research into works of undeniable literary and public significance. With this year’s win, John Doe Chinaman joins an elite roster of past winning titles that have shaped public discourse and deepened our understanding of global history.
