Category: EventsTTTT

2015 Shortlist debate and announcement

“Is there an Unreported Britain? The democratic deficit and the new contours of want”

The Boardroom
309 Regent Street
University of Westminster
W1B 2HW London
United Kingdom

On the evening of the 21st of April, the Orwell Prize will be announcing the shortlists for its 2015 prizes at a debate between journalist Stephen Armstrong and media expert Martin Moore. Professor Jean Seaton, the Director of the Orwell Prize, will chair.

The debate follows the success of the Unreported Britain series, commissioned by the Orwell Prize in partnership with the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and published in the Guardian.

Following the debate, the shortlists for the 2015 Book Prize, Journalism Prize, and the new Prize for Exposing Britain’s Social Evils will be announced.

Register for a ticket at the event page here.

Please contact alex.bartram@orwellfoundation.com with any queries.

2015 Longlists

Book prize

Journalism prize

Prize for Exposing Britain’s Social Evils (opens in new window)

The Orwell Lecture 2014

For the annual Orwell Lecture, David Kynaston will discuss ‘Whatever Happened to Social Mobility’, on Wednesday 12 November.

David Kynaston is a professional historian who has written eighteen books, including the widely acclaimed four-volume The City of London, and the best-selling Austerity Britain. He is an honorary professor at Kingston University.

The lecture will begin at 6.30pm. Please register here, and arrive early to be sure of a seat. We cannot guarantee places.

This lecture forms part of our ‘Unreported Britain’ programme of events, to mark the new Orwell Prize for Exposing Britain’s Social Evils, supported by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation.

Buxton Festival 2014: The Housing Crisis and the Countryside

The Housing Crisis and the Countryside, ‘Buried by a kind of volcanic eruption from the outer suburbs’ (George Orwell, Coming Up For Air).

Thursday 24 July 2014, 2pm-3pm

To celebrate the 75th anniversary of the publication of ‘Coming Up for Air’, Orwell Prize director Professor Jean Seaton will chair a panel to discuss the rural and built environment, and what can be done to avert a housing crisis.

The panel will include Owen Hatherley (writer and journalist, author of A Guide to the New Ruins of Great Britain), Professor Robert Colls (Professor of Cultural History at De Montford University, author of George Orwell: English Rebel), Professor David Matless (Professor of Cultural Geography at the University of Nottingham, author of Landscape and Englishness), and Nick Boles (MP for Grantham and Stamford and Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Planning).

 

‘Adapting Orwell’ with Michael Radford

The Almeida Theatre, in conjunction with The Orwell Prize

The director of the Orwell Prize, Professor Jean Seaton, will be in conversation with Oscar nominated film director Michael Radford, after a performance of 1984 at the Almeida Theatre. This event, the second in our series, will look at how Orwell has been adapted for different mediums, and the different ways his work has been understood. It will take place after the production on the 26th of March: tickets to the play are required for the debate. There are a very limited number of tickets still available. Please contact the Almeida Theatre for further details, and quote ‘The Orwell Prize’.

Visit http://www.almeida.co.uk/event/1984 for further details.

The Orwell Lecture 2013: Professor Tariq Ramadan

This year’s Orwell Lecture will be given by Professor Tariq Ramadan of Oxford University on ‘Democratising the Middle East: A New Role for the West’ on the evening of Tuesday 12th November. The event will take place at the new venue of University College London.

 

Last year Christopher Andrew gave an excellent lecture on the secrets of the 1962 missile crisis which he says is the most dangerous most in British history. You can view last year’s Orwell Lecture here.

Launch 2014: Internet and the modern self

Speakers

Details

This year’s Orwell Prize will launch with a debate, at the Frontline Club, London on Monday 21st October. This year our panel will speak on the notion of ‘Internet and the modern self: manners and abuse online’. The schedule for the evening is as follows:

  • 6.30pm Drinks
  • 7pm Launch of the Orwell Prize 2014 and announcement of judges
  • 7.05pm Discussion:

Entries for this year’s Prize will open on Monday 21 October 2013 and close on Wednesday 15 January 2014, for all work published in 2013. The rules are available elsewhere on our website, while the entry forms will become available after the launch on our ‘How to enter’ page. If you have any queries, please contact katriona.lewis@mediastandardstrust.org.

The schedule for this year’s Prize is:

  • Entries open and judges announced at an event: 21st October 2013
  • Entries close: 15th January 2014
  • Longlists announced online: Midday 26th March 2014
  • Shortlists announced at an event: 23rd April 2014
  • Winners announced at a Church House prize ceremony: 14th May 2014

Links

Brian Sewell in conversation with John Bird: Tramping Today – Marking the 110th Anniversary of George Orwell’s Birth

Frequently – to the point of cliché in fact – described as Britain’s most famous and controversial art critic, Brian Sewell is so much more; a fearlessly opinionated journalist, scandalously honest memoirist, reluctant TV presenter and self-described gypsy scholar. His waspish wit and uncompromising views have made him something of an icon (though he would surely reject the term), and have been shared with the public via his Orwell Prize-winning essays, his Evening Standard columns and, most recently, his two-volume memoirs, Outsider. He will be joined by Big Issue founder and author of The Necessity of Poverty John Bird to discuss tramping and to reflect on homelessness and attitudes to it since Orwell’s seminal Down and Out in Paris and London, in an event that marks the 110th anniversary of his birth.

Discussion: Dystopian Visions of the Future

The Burgess Foundation and the Orwell Prize present a special event looking at dystopian visions of the future. Taking as a starting-point George Orwell’s totalitarian nightmare Nineteen Eighty-Four and Anthony Burgess’s ominously prescient fictions 1985, The Wanting Seed and A Clockwork Orange, writers and critics Eleanor Byrne (MMU), Kaye Mitchell (University of Manchester) and Michael Sayeau (UCL, the Orwell Archive) discuss these powerful texts and more, and look at what dystopias mean for us today.

Awards Ceremony 2013

This year’s awards ceremony will start at 6.30pm (drinks), with the winners being announced from 7pm. The ceremony is being held at Church House, Westminster, which hosted the Houses of Parliament during the Second World War and the first meeting of the UN Security Council.

Entry is free, and everyone is welcome. Please feel free to share the invitation – booking is essential.

We look forward to seeing you there.

Orwell Prize Shortlist Event 2013: When censorship declines does freedom emerge?

Speakers

  • Nita May OBE (Producer for the BBC Burmese Service)
  • Tayzar Moe Myint (Former Burmese political prisoner and UN Development Program Analyst)
  • Julia Farringdon (Head of Arts at Index on Censorship)
  • Chaired by Jean Seaton (Director of The Orwell Prize)
  • Details

    This year’s Orwell Prize shortlists will be announced at the Boardroom, University of Westminster, Regents Street on the evening of Wednesday 17th April, ahead of a debate; When censorship declines does freedom emerge?

    There will be drinks from 6.30pm, with this year’s Orwell Prize shortlists – for the Book Prize and Journalism Prize – being announced at 7pm. The debate will follow the shortlist announcements.

    Entry is free, but places are limited, so booking is essential. Please feel free to share the invitation with friends and colleagues.

    The Irrawaddy Literary Festival

    The Orwell Prize will be at the Irrawaddy Literary Festival, Burma’s first international literary festival, with three panel discussions.

    Friday 1st February

      3.30pm Writing Under Censorship and the Future of Free Speech

    • Timothy Garton Ash (journalist, author, historian, Professor of European Studies at Oxford University and winner of the 2006 Orwell Prize for Journalism)
    • Pe Myint (Burmese politician, writer, journalist and editor of Myanmar Weekly)
    • U Ba Myint (writer and critic)

    Saturday 2nd February

      4.30pm The Orwell Lecture

    • Timothy Garton Ash (journalist, author, historian, Professor of European Studies at Oxford University and winner of the 2006 Orwell Prize for Journalism)
    • Pe Myint (Burmese politician, writer, journalist and founder of The Botataung)
    • Jean Seaton (Director of The Orwell Prize, Professor of Journalism at the University of Westminster, official historian of the BBC)

    Sunday 3rd February

      12.30pm Witness of Violence

    • Timothy Garton Ash (journalist, author, historian, Professor of European Studies at Oxford University and winner of the 2006 Orwell Prize for Journalism)
    • Fergal Keane (Burmese politician, writer, journalist and founder of The Botataung)
    • Rory Stewart (MP and author)
    • Ma Thida (Burmese writer and critic)

    Launch debate 2013: A crisis in policing?

    Speakers

    • Roger Graef (criminologist and BAFTA winning film-maker)
    • Denis MacShane (MP for Rotherham)
    • Andrew Norfolk (The Times. Norfolk was instrumental in exposing the Rotherham grooming scandal)
    • Vivienne Hayes (CEO of the Women’s Resource Centre, specialists in gender policy analysis and a lead partner in the Safer Future Communities Partnership, funded by the Home Office, which supports engagement with new Police and Crime Commissioners.)
    • Chaired by Jean Seaton (Director of the Orwell Prize)

    Details

    This year’s Orwell Prize will launch with a debate on ‘A crisis in policing?’, at the Frontline Club, London on Wednesday 24 October. The schedule for the evening is as follows:

    • 6.30pm Drinks
    • 7pm Launch of the Orwell Prize 2012 and announcement of judges
    • 7.05pm Discussion, ‘A crisis in policing?’

    Entries for this year’s Prize will open on Wednesday 24 October 2012 and close on Wednesday 9 January 2013, for all work published in 2012. The rules are available elsewhere on our website, while the entry forms will become available after the launch on our ‘How to enter’ page. If you have any queries, please contact katriona.lewis@mediastandardstrust.org.

    The schedule for this year’s Prize is:

    • 24 October 2012 Launch and launch debate
    • 18 January 2013 Close of submissions
    • 20 March 2013 Longlist announcement
    • 17 April 2013 Shortlist announcement and debate
    • 15 May 2013 Awards ceremony, Church House

    Links

    Letchworth 2012: Poverty then and now, Orwell and his successors

    Speakers

  • Stephen Armstrong is the author of Road to Wigan Pier Revisited, a book he retraced Orwell’s steps in The Road to Wigan Pier to write. His journalism includes work for the Guardian, The Sunday Times, GQ, Elle, Wallpaper and the New Statesman.
  • Dr Michael Sayeau replaced Peter Davison on the Board of trustees for the Orwell Archive at UCL. He is a lecturer of English whose own work includes an examination of the everyday in modern literature.
  • Jacqueline Crooks is is Director of Befriend a Family who work with children living in poverty within Westminster. She is also a published writer.
  • Gwenton Sloley is a real life character from Hood Rat, shortlisted for this year’s Orwell Prize for Books. Gwenton is a former gang member, who is now the Project Manager of London’s Shian Housing Association’s Makeda Weaver project, which works with young offenders. His autobiography is From the Streets to Scotland Yard*
  • Chaired by Katriona Lewis, Operations Manager of The Orwell Prize.


  • *Formally billed as Gavin Knight, author of Hood Rat

    Details

    In early 1936 Orwell journeyed to Wigan, a town ravaged by the Great Depression. Reports on what he saw and who he met there formed the basis for the first part of The Road to Wigan Pier. The book was critical in the development of his own political views and stirred mass commitment to democratic socialism. Has this change been sustained? For the 75th anniversary, of The Road to Wigan Pier our panel will examine the parallels between poverty in the 20th and 21st centuries and discuss how our writers can impact on society.

    Links

  • George Orwell: The Road to Wigan Pier
  • Ben Pimlott: Introduction to Orwell’s England
  • The Road to Wigan Pier Diary Blog
  • Keep the Aspidistra Flying
  • Video








    Buxton 2012: Orwell vs. Kipling

      Speakers

      For Orwell;

    • Paul Anderson (journalist, author, academic, editor of Orwell in Tribune: ‘As I Please and other writings 1943-7’)
    • Stuart Evers (Author of ‘Ten Stories about Smoking’ and ‘If This is Home’; book reviewer)
    • For Kipling;

    • Charles Allen (historian, author of Orwell Prize-longlisted ‘Kipling Sahib’)
    • Jan Montefiore (Professor at University of Kent, author of ‘Kipling’ and editor of Kipling’s forthcoming ‘The Man Who Would be King and other stories’)
    • Chaired by Tony Wright (Former MP for Cannock Chase, Professor of Government and Public Policy at UCL, co-editor of Political Quarterly)

    Details

    Both Orwell and Kipling wrote about the British Empire, having both been born in India. Both are known to people who haven’t read a word of their work, whether through Nineteen Eighty-Four or The Jungle Book. Both were intensely political writers, who wrote poetry, prose and for the press. But was Orwell or Kipling the greater writer? Whose work resonates more today? And for whom will you vote after our panel have made their respective cases?

    Links

  • Buxton 2011: Is politics corrupted by corrupted language
  • George Orwell: Burmese Days (1934)
  • George Orwell: Rudyard Kipling (New English Weekly, 1936)
  • George Orwell: Rudyard Kipling (Horizon, 1942)
  • Douglas Kerr: Orwell, Kipling and Empire
  • Video

    Awards Ceremony 2012

    This year’s awards ceremony will start at 6.30pm (drinks), with the winners being announced from 7pm.The ceremony is being held at Church House, Westminster, which hosted the Houses of Parliament during the Second World War and the first meeting of the UN Security Council.

    Entry is free, and everyone is welcome. Please feel free to share the invitation – email katriona.lewis@mediastandardstrust.org to reserve a place on the guestlist.

    We look forward to seeing you on the 23rd.