The Orwell Foundation

‘What I have most wanted to do... is to make political writing into an art’
About Orwell
Enter the prizes

Welcome to the official website of The Orwell Foundation. We use the work of George Orwell to celebrate honest writing and reporting, uncover hidden lives and confront uncomfortable truths – and, in doing so, to promote Orwell’s values of integrity, decency and fidelity to truth.

Programmes

The Orwell Foundation was originally established as The Orwell Prize, Britain’s most prestigious prizes for political writing, and the prizes continue to be at the heart of our mission. Prizes are awarded each year to the books and journalism which come closest to meeting George Orwell’s ambition ‘to make political writing into an art’. But we do much more, from our regular programme of events and debates, to the Unreported Britain journalism project, to live readings and dramatisations which bring Orwell's work to life for the 21st century.

Orwell Live

The Orwell Lectures

Encountering Orwell

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News and events

News

Twitter

Orwell Prize winners spotted around and about by our eagle-eyed staff (me): POVERTY SAFARI @lokiscottishrap recommended in Dorking Waterstones @WaterstonesDork and TWO COPIES of @JohnBew CITIZEN CLEM to rent in the new West Norwood library @wnorwoodlibrary pic.twitter.com/8NlD5Ntw45

About 4 days ago from The Orwell Foundation's Twitter via Twitter Web Client

Events

Orwell & 1984 at The Bath Festival

Thursday 23 May 2019

16:15 - 17:15

Doublethink, Newspeak and The Thought Police: do we live in the world that Orwell predicted?

Unreported Britain

Together with the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF), we are delivering the Unreported Britain project as one part of the work of the new JRF-sponsored Prize The Orwell Prize for Exposing Britain’s Social Evils.

Orwell resources

As the only website officially sanctioned by the Orwell Estate, we publish a wide range of resources by and about George Orwell, including our Webby-shortlisted Orwell Diaries blog, Orwell's most popular essays and a library of links to external and exclusive content.

Selected examples
SEE ALL ORWELL BOOKS

Sponsors & Partners

The Orwell Foundation is extremely grateful to its sponsors and partners. If you would to find out more about supporting the prize, please contact us.

Orwell values

Using the word ‘political’ in the widest possible sense. Desire to push the world in a certain direction, to alter other peoples’ idea of the kind of society that they should strive after.

George Orwell
Why I Write

George Orwell
2016-04-03T22:33:10+00:00

George Orwell
Why I Write

Using the word ‘political’ in the widest possible sense. Desire to push the world in a certain direction, to alter other peoples’ idea of the kind of society that they should strive after.
Intellectual cowardice is the worst enemy a writer or journalist has to face… If liberty means anything at all it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear

George Orwell
Proposed Preface to Animal Farm

George Orwell
2016-04-04T10:15:57+00:00

George Orwell
Proposed Preface to Animal Farm

Intellectual cowardice is the worst enemy a writer or journalist has to face… If liberty means anything at all it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear
Freedom of the intellect means the freedom to report what one has seen, heard, and felt, and not to be obliged to fabricate imaginary facts and feelings.

George Orwell
The Prevention of Literature

George Orwell
2016-04-03T22:29:50+00:00

George Orwell
The Prevention of Literature

Freedom of the intellect means the freedom to report what one has seen, heard, and felt, and not to be obliged to fabricate imaginary facts and feelings.
When there is a gap between one’s real and one’s declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish spurting out ink.

George Orwell
Politics and the English Language

George Orwell
2016-04-04T10:15:07+00:00

George Orwell
Politics and the English Language

When there is a gap between one’s real and one’s declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish spurting out ink.
To exchange one orthodoxy for another is not necessarily an advance. The enemy is the gramophone mind, whether or not one agrees with the record that is being played at the moment.

George Orwell
Proposed Preface to Animal Farm

George Orwell
2016-04-03T22:24:33+00:00

George Orwell
Proposed Preface to Animal Farm

To exchange one orthodoxy for another is not necessarily an advance. The enemy is the gramophone mind, whether or not one agrees with the record that is being played at the moment.

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