Friday 21 January 2011
Rudyard Kipling died 75 years ago this week (on 18th January 1936). Orwell wrote an essay on Kipling (for Horizon in 1942), which you can now read on our website. Both writers were born in India, and wrote about the British Empire – although from rather different perspectives. Orwell called Kipling ‘the prophet of British imperialism in its expansionist phase’, while Orwell’s attitude to Empire was much less positive, as shown by Burmese Days. You can read the first chapter, and more about Orwell and Burma, on our site. Douglas Kerr’s essay comparing the two writers is also well worth a read.
The Orwell Prize 2011
Entries for this year’s Prize are now CLOSED, and we’ll be publishing a full list of entries shortly. If you have any queries, please get in touch.
From the Archive
With Orwell having died on this day in 1950, it may be a good time to visit our archive section, where we have an expanding selection of works by Orwell, and articles about him. This week, Orwell Prize-winning blogger Winston Smith is featured in the New Statesman. You can find links to his winning posts, and some newspaper features on him, here. Elsewhere, Orwell Prize-winning journalist Timothy Garton Ash has been writing about the situation in Tunisia. Timothy took part in a very lively discussion on free speech for us last year (with Mehdi Hasan and Douglas Murray), which you can watch on video.
The Orwell Diaires
The next Orwell diary entry will be published on 22nd January.