A summer on Jura
05 October 2012
By Oliver Bullough, shortlisted for the Orwell Prize for Books in 2011 Barnhill, where George Orwell wrote 1984, is foursquare and whitewashed, sheltered in a hollow, with a view south over the sea to the khaki hills of Argyll. It well repays looking at,… find out more
Remembering Jura
05 October 2012
Richard Blair, Orwell's only son, remembers his time on the island with his father After my mother Eileen, died in march 1945 my father was rather at a loss as to what to do next. So after a series of relatives and friends were coerced into looking after… find out more
On Jura
04 October 2012
This newsletter was written by Dulcie Lee This week we're delighted to share two very special new pieces of writing on our website. Oliver Bullough, who was shortlisted for the Orwell Prize for Books last year, has given us an account of his summer at Or… find out more
Eric Hobsbawm: thought and worked until the end
02 October 2012
Director of The Orwell Prize, Professor Jean Seaton, pays tribute to the historian who died yesterday in London Eric Hobsbawm, who has died at 95, was a member of the Orwell Trust (which started the Orwell Prize). This was puzzling: Orwell had been anat… find out more
Orwell’s England
27 September 2012
Last week the Orwell Prize took a panel to the George Orwell Festival at Letchworth near Wallington where Orwell lived for a time after his 1936 journey to Wigan. We were there to talk about The Road to Wigan Pier; the poverty Orwell saw there in comparis… find out more
Great Lives
20 September 2012
This week George Orwell was the subject of BBC Radio 4's Great Lives. The show was presented by Matthew Parris who won the Orwell Prize for Journalism in 2005 and featured former MP Alan Johnson as well as our Orwell Prize Director, Professor Jean Seaton.… find out more
Treading Orwell’s road to Wigan
13 September 2012
A guestpost by Stephen Armstrong, author of Road to Wigan Pier Revisited. Stephen will join our panel for Poverty then and now; Orwell and his successors at Letchworth Festival Thursday 20th September. I don’t think I truly realised the dangers of revi… find out more
Poverty then and now: Orwell and his successors
06 September 2012
The Orwell Prize will be returning to the Letchworth George Orwell Festival for a second year in just two weeks. This time we're taking a discussion on poverty then and now with some of Orwell's 'successors'. Our exciting panel is made up of Dr Michael Sa… find out more
Why I wrote Dead Men Risen
24 August 2012
This is a guest post by Toby Harnden, winner of the 2012 Orwell Prize for Books Toby Harnden on winning The Orwell Prize In his essay of self-examination ‘Why I Write’, George Orwell wrote that "All writers are vain, selfish and lazy, and at the … find out more
Animal Farm
17 August 2012
Today we celebrate the anniversary of the publication of Animal Farm which was first available in 1945. In the same month Orwell began work as the Literary Editor of The Tribune, he also began writing one of the works his name would be most remembered fo… find out more
