Friday 25 February 2011
We’re delighted to be heading to the Sunday Times Oxford Literary Festival for a fourth year, with three panel discussions.
On Sunday 3rd April, we’ll be marking the 75th anniversary of Rudyard Kipling’s death with an Orwell vs Kipling debate (similar to our previous Orwell vs Dickens debates at Oxford and Buxton). Paul Anderson (journalist and editor of Orwell in Tribune) and Sarah Bakewell (who won the Duff Cooper Prize for How to Live: A Life of Montaigne this week) will defend Orwell against Charles Allen (Orwell Prize-longlisted for Kipling Sahib) and one other for Kipling. You can read Orwell’s essays on Kipling (one from 1936, the other from 1942) on our website.
We have two events on Tuesday 5th April – at 10am, a discussion on ‘Comedy and the Coalition’ with cartoonist Martin Rowson (and others), and at noon, we ask ‘Does it make a difference who funds the arts?’. Sir Mark Jones, director of the Victoria and Albert Museum, will be one of the panellists, chaired by BBC arts editor, Will Gompertz.
We’ll have details of more events shortly.
The Orwell Prize 2011
This year’s Prize has received a record-breaking 213 entries for the Book Prize, 87 journalists for the Journalism Prize and 205 bloggers for the Blog Prize. To see a full list of entrants, now linked for your reading pleasure, visit our website.
The longlists will be announced on 30th March 2011.
From elsewhere
On the web this week:
- The Observer revisits Orwell’s Wigan, 75 years on, and has photos of the town from the late 1930s
- Over at MailOnline, Orwell Prize-winner Peter Hitchens discusses an obscure Orwell essay – ‘The Case for the Open Fire’
- The Independent on Sunday describes A Life in Letters as ‘a must for Orwell fans’ – watch editor Peter Davison talk about the new material on our website
- And at The Guardian, Jonathan Jones on revolution, George Orwell and Joan Miró
Events
A number of previous winners will be appearing up and down the UK over the next few weeks:
Aye Write! Glasgow
- 6th March – Peter Hennessy with Keith Jeffery (click here to book)
- 7th March – Raja Shehadeh (click here to book)
- 8th March – Francis Wheen (click here to book)
- 11th March – Polly Toynbee with David Walker (click here to book)
Jewish Book Week, London
- 2nd March – Clive James with Pascal Bruckner (click here to book)
- 6th March – Raja Shehadeh (click here to book)
- 6th March – Johann Hari with Gideon Levy (click here to book)
Cambridge Book Festival
- 3rd March – Raja Shehadeh with Robert Macfarlane (click here to book)
Qattan Foundation
- 4th March – Raja Shehadeh (click here to book)
Also, this year’s Political Quarterly lecture (PQ are one of our partners) will be given by David Miliband on 8 March. Visit the LSE website for more information.
The Wigan Pier diaries
This week, entries were published on 19th, 20th, 21st and 24th February.
Next week, entries will be published on 27th February and 2nd and 3rd March.
In addition to the blog, we have a Google Map tracking Orwell’s journey, a flickr set of archive images, and our page on The Road to Wigan Pier, with the first chapter and other links.
The Wartime diaries
Next week, entries will be published on 1st, 3rd and 4th 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.