The Orwell Festival

Wednesday 22 June 2022

from £5, concessions available

Online and in-person across London

Great political writing can, and does, change the world and the very best of it will be showcased at the Orwell Festival. This year, we’ve teamed up with Substack and UCL’s Institute of Advanced Studies to put on The Orwell Festival.

From 22 June to 14 July 2022 the Festival will bring together our shortlisted writers, judges, and special guests, in a series of events (online, and in-person across central London) to answer some of the most pressing questions in political writing and thinking today.

Our selection of events will feature some of the most significant thinkers and newsmakers of recent times. Speakers include former Downing Street advisor Dominic Cummings in his first public appearance since leaving Number Tenenvironmentalist George Monbiot and former Governor of Hong Kong Chris Patten.

The festival will open with Rebecca Solnit, whose Orwell Festival lecture will explore themes from her book Orwell’s Roses. We also welcome back two of last year’s Orwell Prize winners: Ali Smith, whose latest work is set in the heart of lockdown, and Joshua Yaffa, who has been reporting from Ukraine for the New Yorker. The Festival will culminate, at the closing ceremony on Thursday 14 July 2022, in the announcement of the winners of The Orwell Prizes.

In the spirit of George Orwell’s fiction, non-fiction and journalism, The Orwell Foundation aims to celebrate honest and creative writing and reporting, uncover hidden lives, and confront uncomfortable truths. We take seriously Orwell’s injunction that if ‘Liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.’

As such, the Orwell Festival will be a space for difficult debate and diversity of opinion and viewpoints, encourage creativity and clarity of expression, provide a platform for unheard voices, and defend the right to individual conscience, whilst remaining politically impartial.

Visit The Orwell Festival website to see the latest events and get your tickets.

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