Friday 21 December 2012
Merry Christmas from The Orwell Prize. As a Christmas treat in celebration of the anniversary of In Defence of English Cooking, which was published in December 1945, we are thrilled to share the Orwell House Project’s video on Orwell and food. You can watch the video here and we look forward to sharing more about Orwell House in the New Year. 2012 has been a fantastic year for the prize with events at the Sunday Times Oxford Literary Festival, the Buxton Festival and Letchworth Festival, as well as our shortlist debate and awards ceremony, the 2013 Prize’s launch debate and this year’s Orwell Lecture. This year we were delighted to name three new Orwell Prize winners from three very strong longlists and a great field of entries: Toby Harnden for Dead Men Risen, Amelia Gentleman for her journalism in The Guardian, and the blog Rangers Tax-Case. Best wishes for Christmas, and for 2013, from all at the Prize.
We are OPEN for 2013 entries
Since October we have been accepting journalism and books from some of the very best writers of 2012 but there’s still room for much more. Entry forms for the journalism and book prizes, 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, or learn more about the judges. Entries close on 9 January 2013, for all work first published in 2012. 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. If you haven’t already seen it you can watch our launch ad for some inspiration; Good luck!
The Irrawaddy Lit Fest
For early next year we’re very much looking forward to attending the Irrawaddy lit fest, Burma’s first English language international literary festival. Writers who have confirmed that they will attend and speak include Orwell Prize winning Timothy Garton Ash, Pandora a poet who contributed to Bones will crow an anthology of Burmese poetry published with English PEN and the prisoner of war performer Zaganar. You can see a full list of writers and their bios as well as more information about the festival, on their website. You can also still ‘Buy a book’ for Burma with the Orwell Prize here.
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.