Full Judging Line-Up Confirmed

Monday 28 November 2011

We’re delighted to confirm the full line-up of judges for this year’s Orwell Prizes. Judging the Book Prize are Miranda Carter (writer and former winner of the Orwell Prize for her Anthony Blunt: His Lives), Baroness Helena Kennedy QC (previously shortlisted for her Just Law) and Sameer Rahim (assistant books editor at the Daily Telegraph). Previous winner, and professor of journalism at Kingston University, Brian Cathcart, will be judging this year’s Journalism Prize with Ian Hargreaves, former Independent editor, former director of BBC News and Current Affairs and now professor of digital economy at Cardiff University. And this year’s Blog Prize judges are Suzanne Moore (journalist, The Guardian and the Mail on Sunday) and Hopi Sen (blogger, previously shortlisted and longlisted for the Orwell Prize). You can read more about this year’s judges on our website.

Entries now open

The Orwell Prize 2012 is now OPEN for entries. Entry forms for all three prize, and basic details of the entry process, are available on our ‘How to Enter’ page. You can also check out the full rules and the values of the Prize. Entries close on 18 January 2012, for all work first published in 2011. The Prize is self-nominating, but if you think there’s someone who should enter, either encourage them to do so or get in touch. Good luck!

George Orwell Memorial Lecture 2011

You can now watch the video of this year’s Orwell Lecture – where Alan Rusbridger, editor-in-chief of Guardian News and Media, talked about ‘Hacking Away at the Truth’ – on our website. There’s also a copy of the full text, as well as links to previous Orwell Lectures. The Orwell Lecture is organised by the Orwell Trust with Birkbeck College, University of London.

From the archive

There’s been a lot in the press about Orwell’s essay on the perfect pub, ‘The Moon Under Water’, this week. BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, The Sun and the Daily Mail all covered a new book by Paul Moody and Robin Turner, The Search for the Perfect Pub: Looking For the Moon Under Water. You can read Orwell’s original on our site, along with his review of a Mass Observation report, The Pub and the People. More on food, as well as drink: Sophie Mackenzie wrote a great piece for The Guardian on Orwell and cookery, ‘George Orwell’s hot and cold British menu’. On our site, we have Orwell’s unpublished ‘British Cookery’ essay (text, and photographs of the original typescript), his ‘In Defence of English Cooking’, and the perennial favourite, ‘A Nice Cup of Tea’. And new to our site this month: first published on 22 November 1946, Orwell’s ‘Riding Down from Bangor’.

From elsewhere

The Wartime Diaries

The next entry will be published on 14th March.

The Hop-Picking Diaries

The final entry was published on 8th October.

The Wigan Pier Diaries

The final entry was published on 25th March. If you’ve got any suggestions about our website(s), we’d love to hear from you – email us on gavin.freeguard@mediastandardstrust.org or follow us on Twitter. And you can subscribe to this newsletter via email.