The Orwell Prize is a British award given for political writing. It is managed by The Orwell Foundation, an independent charity (registered charity number 1161563, previously called "The Orwell Prize") and led by a group of trustees. Each year, five prizes are given: one for a fiction book about politics (started in 2019), one for a non-fiction book about politics, one for journalism, one for "Exposing Britain's Social Evils" (started in 2015), and one for reporting or commentary on homelessness (established in 2023, after being paused between 2012 and 2026). The winner in each category is the short-listed entry that best follows George Orwell's goal to "make political writing into an art."
In 2014, the Youth Orwell Prize was created to encourage students in years 9 to 13 to write about political topics. In 2015, the Orwell Prize for Exposing Britain's Social Evils was launched, supported by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation. In 2023, the Orwell Prize for Reporting Homelessness was started, with support from the Centre for Homelessness Impact.
The prize was founded in 1993 by British political theorist Sir Bernard Crick, using money from the hardback edition of his biography of George Orwell. Current sponsors include Richard Blair (George Orwell's son), The Political Quarterly, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, and A. M. Heath, who manage the Orwell Estate's literary work. The prize was previously supported by the Media Standards Trust and Reuters. Bernard Crick led the judges until 2006; since 2007, media historian Jean Seaton has directed the prize. Each year, judging panels for all four prizes are selected.
Winners and shortlists
Starting in 2019, the Book Prize was divided into fiction and non-fiction categories.
Tom Burgess, BBC News, BBC Radio 4
Joseph Phelan, The Big Issue
Andrew Seaton, The New Statesman
Damian Shepherd, Bloomberg UK
Katharine Swindells, Inside Housing
Mimi Yates, The Daily Mail
Special prizes
In addition to the four regular prizes, the judges may choose to give a special prize.
In 2007, BBC's Newsnight programme received a special prize. The judges said, "When we discussed the many excellent pieces of journalism submitted, Newsnight naturally came up as the most valuable and trustworthy place for reporting important stories. Its work was created beautifully and intelligently by journalists of exceptional quality."
In 2008, Clive James received a special award.
In 2009, Tony Judt was given a lifetime achievement award.
In 2012, a posthumous award was given to Christopher Hitchens. His book Arguably had been longlisted that year.
In 2013, Marie Colvin received a special prize for her work On the Front Line. She had been killed earlier that year while working in Homs, Syria.
In 2014, Guardian columnist Jonathan Freedland received a special award. He had been shortlisted for the Journalism Prize that year.
In 2023, photographer Craig Easton received a special award for his long-term work to expose Britain's social problems through his project Thatcher's Children.
Controversy
In 2008, Johann Hari won an award in the Journalism category. In July 2011, the Council of the Orwell Prize decided to take back the award and remove Hari's name from the list of winners. The public announcement was delayed because Hari was being investigated by The Independent for professional misconduct. In September 2011, Hari said he would return the prize "as an act of apology for the mistakes I made in my interviews," but he still believed the articles that won the prize were correct. A few weeks later, the Council confirmed that Hari had returned the plaque but not the £2,000 prize money. They also said one of the articles submitted for the prize, "How multiculturalism is betraying women," published by The Independent in April 2007, "had errors and mixed parts of someone else's story (from a report in Der Spiegel)."
Hari did not return the prize money at first. Later, he offered to pay it back, but Political Quarterly, which handled the prize money in 2008, asked Hari to instead donate the amount to English PEN, an organization George Orwell was part of. Hari agreed to donate the same amount as the prize, to be paid in parts once he returned to work at The Independent. However, Hari never went back to work at The Independent.