Less than three weeks to go

Friday 26 April 2013

The Orwell Prize, Britain’s most prestigious prize for political writing, is supported by the Media Standards Trust, Political Quarterly, AM Heath and Richard Blair (Orwell’s son). The winners of the 2013 Orwell Prize – our 20th prize – will be announced on the evening of Wednesday 15th May at Church House. We would love to see as many of our friends and supporters there possible. The event is free but booking is essential, get your place here. You can see the full list of six journalists here and seven books here. Each of the shortlisted journalist’s submitted articles are available on our website and extracts from each of the books are now available too. This year’s judging meetings were very lively and full of intelligence. Shortlisted for journalism is Christina Patterson on the state of the NHS, Tom Bergin on corporation tax, Andrew Norfolk on grooming in the North of England, Ian Cobain on British complicity in torture, Jamil Anderlini on corruption in China and Kim Sengupta on conflict. The shortlisted books are Burying the Typewriter, a personal story on childhood in the Romanian surveillance regime, From the Ruins of the Empire on the recent history and evolution of Asia, Occupation Diaries on daily life in Palestine, A Very British Killing a painstakingly detailed account of the death of Baha Mousa, Injustice on the death row trial of Kris Maharaj, Richard Holloway’s memoir Leaving Alexandria and the collection of Marie Colvin’s journalism, On the Front Line.

The shortlist pictures

Photographs of our shortlist debate were uploaded to the Facebook page this week. Make sure you ‘like’ us to get regular updates. We will upload footage of the thought provoking panel soon but in the meantime, make sure you watch this little film we made in Yangon.

Wigan Pier Workshops in TES

Over the summer we’re looking forward to telling you more about the Wigan Pier Workshops that we run with Stephen Armstrong and Sunshine House Community Centre but in the meantime make sure you read our TES write up of Avaes Mohammad and John Hegley’s day there. Read the colourful piece here.

From elsewhere

  • George Orwell’s Barcelona, The Telegraph
  • My hero: Marie Colvin by Lindsey Hilsum, The Guardian
  • After Orwell, Financial Times
  • From the archive

    Yesterday was the 75th publication anniversary of Homage to Catalonia. If you haven’t read it yet or would like to read it again, why not start with the first chapter from our website courtesy of Penguin Books.

    The diaries

    Don’t forget our other Orwell Diary blogs: his Wartime Diary, Hop-Picking Diary and The Road to Wigan Pier Diary. You can sign up to our newsletter If you’ve got any suggestions about our website(s), we’d love to hear from you – email us on katriona.lewis@mediastandardstrust.org. You can also follow us on Twitter and like us on Facebook.