The Orwell Prize for Books 2016: Longlists Announced

Monday 07 March 2016

 

THE ORWELL PRIZE FOR BOOKS 2016 LONGLIST ANNOUNCED

#OrwellPrize2016

For immediate release

The Longlist for the Orwell Prize for Books 2016 was announced today, Monday 7th March 2016. The Orwell Prize is Britain’s most prestigious prize for political writing. It is awarded each year for the book which come closest to George Orwell’s ambition to ‘make political writing into an art’.

  • This year’s wide-ranging longlist features five women and eight men
  • Books from four independent publishing houses longlisted
  • Emma Sky longlisted for her first book

The judges for the Orwell Prize for Books 2016 are Lord William Waldegrave, Professor Andrew Gamble, David Goodhart and Fiammetta Rocco. Lord Waldegrave joins the judges at the shortlisting stage. The shortlists for the Orwell Prize for Books, the Orwell Prize for Journalism and the Orwell Prize for Exposing Britain’s Social Evils will be announced at an event on the evening of Thursday 21st April 2016. The winner of each £3000 prize will be announced at a ceremony at the end of May 2016. The Orwell Prize was established by the late Sir Bernard Crick in its present form in 1993, awarding its first Prizes in 1994. Past winners of the Orwell Prize for Books include James Meek (2015), Alan Johnson (2014), Andrea Gillies (2010) Raja Shehadeh (2008) and Peter Hennessy (2007). The Orwell Prize is also awarded each year for Journalism and for Exposing Britain’s Social Evils. The longlists for the Orwell Prize for Journalism and the Orwell Prize for Exposing Britain’s Social Evils was announced on Wednesday 2nd March. All the longlists can be found here.  The Orwell Prize for Books 2016: Longlist Andy Beckett, Promised you a Miracle: UK80 – 82 (Allen Lane) Jason Burke, The New Threat from Islamic Militancy (Bodley Head) Thomas Harding, The House by the Lake (William Heinemann) Sudhir Hazareesingh, How the French Think (Allen Lane) Steve Hilton, More Human (WH Allen) John Kay, Other People’s Money (Profile Books) Ferdinand Mount, The Tears of the Rajas (Simon and Schuster) Arkady Ostrovsky, The Invention of Russia (Atlantic Books) Emma Sky, The Unravelling (Atlantic Books) Anne-Marie Slaughter, Unfinished Business (Oneworld Publications) Wendell Steavenson, Circling the Square (Granta Books) Gillian Tett, The Silo Effect (Little, Brown) The judges comment: “All of the longlisted books were written out of personal witness. They shared a relationship to the events they described, a holding to account, and they shared a direct, personal engagement with the material.”
 Ends Notes to editors:

  1. The Orwell Prize is Britain’s most prestigious prize for political writing. Every year, prizes are awarded to the book and journalism entries which come closest to George Orwell’s ambition to ‘make political writing into an art’.
  2. For more information, please see our website www.orwellfoundation.com
  3. The Orwell Prize 2016 is for books and journalism first published in the calendar year 2015. All entries must have a clear link to the UK and Ireland, such as residency or citizenship of the author, or first publication. The Prizes are self-nominating. Someone involved in the creation of the work should be responsible for entering it – this may be, for example, the author, editor, or publisher.
  4. The Orwell Prize received 209 entries for the 2016 book prize.
  5. The Prize was founded by the late Professor Sir Bernard Crick 1993, awarding its first prizes in 1994.
  6. The Orwell Prize is sponsored and supported by Political Quarterly, AM Heath and Richard Blair.
  7. The Orwell Prize for Exposing Britain’s Social Evils is sponsored and supported by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, an independent organisation working to inspire social change through research, policy and practice. For more information, please see https://www.jrf.org.uk/
  8. The Director of the Orwell Prize is Professor Jean Seaton
  9. The Orwell Prize is a registered charity (no. 1161563).