The Political Quarterly Conversation: Polly Toynbee – An Uneasy Inheritance
24 May 2023
Join acclaimed author and past winner of the Orwell Prize for Journalism, Polly Toynbee, as she discusses her latest book An Uneasy Inheritance: My Family and Other Radicals. In it, she explores how, while for generations her ancestors have been committe… find out more

Orwell and Empire (at Pushkin House)
24 May 2023
Join Phillipe Sands, author of The Last Colony (shortlisted for the Orwell Prize 2023), Douglas Kerr, author of Orwell and Empire, and Kojo Koram, author of Uncommon Wealth (shortlisted for the Orwell Prize 2022) as they explore first what Kerr calls Orwe… find out more

The Orwell Festival Lecture 2023
24 May 2023
Gary Younge is an award-winning author, broadcaster and a professor of sociology at the University of Manchester in England. Formerly a columnist at The Guardian he is an editorial board member of the Nation magazine and the Alfred Knobler Fellow for Ty… find out more

Orwell Youth Prize Regional Hub at Coventry University
01 March 2023
10th March 2023, Coventry University On Friday 10th March more than 100 school students from across the West Midlands will come together at Coventry University for a unique day of creative writing and journalism workshops inspired by the 2023 Orwell… find out more

The Orwell Memorial Lecture 2022
15 November 2022
About this event The Orwell Foundation is delighted to announce that Lisa Nandy MP will deliver this year's Orwell Lecture. Lisa will be talking about the lessons she has learnt from over a decade at the forefront of British politics as Member of Parliam… find out more

George Monbiot on Journalism, Politics and the Climate Crisis
01 September 2022
Join us for a discussion with writer and journalist George Monbiot, winner of the Orwell Prize for Journalism 2022 Describing the environmental crisis as the greatest challenge humankind has ever confronted, George Monbiot has been trying… find out more

The Orwell Festival: Who’s Killing Our Daughters?
05 July 2022
Join us for this essential debate on how and why, too often, society is failing to keep women safe. The murder of Sarah Everard was billed as a watershed moment, yet at least another 125 women were killed by men in the following twelve months. A panel of … find out more

The Orwell Festival: Crackdown on Dissent
05 July 2022
In what promises to be an event that is truly global in scope, covering Kazakhstan, Myanmar, Russia, Rwanda, and Ukraine, join Ali Fowle, Drew Ambrose, Michela Wrong, and Polina Ivanova as they reflect upon the similarities and dissimilarities of the crac… find out more

The Orwell Festival: J.O. Morgan on APPLIANCE
05 July 2022
Join us for a discussion with poet and novelist J.O. Morgan on his Orwell Prize for Political Fiction shortlisted novel Appliance, a highly inventive and and humane novel about our relationship with technology and our addiction to innovation, with Orwe… find out more

The Orwell Festival: Children and Care
05 July 2022
There are now more children in care than ever before, and not because of a rise in physical or sexual abuse, but because of complex factors that are overlooked and misunderstood. In her Orwell-shortlisted book Behind Closed Doors, Polly Curtis invest… find out more

The Orwell Festival: George Monbiot in conversation
28 June 2022
Describing the environmental crisis as the greatest challenge humankind has ever confronted, George Monbiot has been trying to raise the profile of a wide range of desperately neglected environmental issues for the last 37 years. Yet these issues are almo… find out more

The Coming Storm with Gabriel Gatehouse and Lucy Proctor
28 June 2022
Join Gabriel Gatehouse and Lucy Proctor as they discuss their podcast 'The Coming Storm', shortlisted for The Orwell Prize for Journalism 2022. A year on from the Capitol Insurrection in Washington DC on 6 January 2021, Gabriel Gatehouse journeyed into th… find out more

Ali Smith on Why We Write
28 June 2022
Join us for an evening with Ali Smith and Sarah Wood as they discuss why we write today, politics, fiction and Orwell. There will be a screening of the film Why We Write, a film made in collaboration by Ali and Sarah, a well as discussion of Ali's Season… find out more

The Orwell Festival: Chris Patten on his Hong Kong Diaries
28 June 2022
Chris Patten, former Governor of Hong Kong and current Chancellor of Oxford University, will be interviewed by Isabel Hilton, founder and senior adviser of China Dialogue, about his book The Hong Kong Diaries. In June 1992 Chris Patten went to Hong Kong… find out more

The Orwell Festival
15 June 2022
Great political writing can, and does, change the world and the very best of it will be showcased at the Orwell Festival. This year, we’ve teamed up with Substack and UCL’s Institute of Advanced Studies to put on The Orwell Festival. From 22 June… find out more

‘Politics and the Imagination’: The Orwell Lecture with Ian McEwan
12 October 2021
Ian McEwan will deliver this year's Orwell Lecture on the topic 'Politics and the Imagination: Reflections on Orwell's Inside the Whale' LIVE STREAM NOW AVAILABLE - CLICK HERE FOR LINK In 1957, Albert Camus wrote, 'it is always p… find out more

Longlist Conversation: ‘Care’ with Madeleine Bunting, Douglas Stuart and Ciaran Jenkins
29 April 2021
Join Booker Prize winner Douglas Stuart (Shuggie Bain, Political Fiction), and journalist's Madeleine Bunting (author of Labours of Love: The Care Crisis, Political Writing) and Ciaran Jenkins (Journalism Prize) as they discuss their Orwell Prize longlist… find out more
The Politics of Fiction: Three years of reading Political Fiction at UCL
20 April 2021
This special one-off event forms part of the IAS five-year anniversary festival on the theme of ‘Alternative Epistemologies’, which also marks the five-year anniversary of The Orwell Foundation's arrival at UCL. As Orwell wrote, politics is imp… find out more

Longlist Conversation: ‘Home’ with James Rebanks, Monique Roffey and ‘Anywhere But Westminster’
29 April 2021
Join James Rebanks, Monique Roffey and John Harris/John Domokos from "Anywhere But Westminster" as they discuss the political implications behind their Orwell-Prize longlisted work, prompted by the theme of 'home'. James Rebanks is longlisted for The O… find out more

The Orwell Prize Longlist Conversations: ‘Europe’ with Olivette Otele, Sarah Moss and John Kampfner
20 April 2021
Join John Kampfner, Sarah Moss and Olivette Otele for a discussion of their Orwell Prize-longlisted work at this special online event in collaboration with The Orwell Foundation. John Kampfner’s Why the Germans Do It Better and Olivette Otele’s Afr… find out more
