he Orwell Prize is regarded as the pre-eminent British prize for political writing. Every year, two prizes are awarded: one for a book, and the other for political journalism. In each case, the winner is the short-listed entry which comes closest to George Orwell's own ambition to 'make political writing into an art'.
The prize was founded by Bernard Crick in 1993, using money from the royalties of the hardback edition of his biography of Orwell. Its sponsors are Richard Blair, the adopted son of Orwell, Reuters, The Political Quarterly, Blackwell Publishing, Media Standards Trust, and A. M. Heath & Company.
Book category
* 1994 Anatol Lieven The Baltic Revolution: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and the Path to Independence
* 1995 Fionnuala O'Connor In Search of a State: Catholics in Northern Ireland
* 1996 Fergal Keane Season of Blood: A Rwandan Journey
* 1997 Peter Godwin Mukiwa: A White Boy in Africa
* 1998 Patricia Hollis Jennie Lee: A Life
* 1999 D. M. Thomas Alexander Solzhenitsyn: a Century in His Life
* 2000 Brian Cathcart The Case of Stephen Lawrence
* 2001 Michael Ignatieff Virtual War
* 2002 Miranda Carter Anthony Blunt: His Lives
* 2003 Francis Wheen Hoo-hahs and Passing Frenzies: Collected Journalism 1991-2000
* 2004 Robert Cooper The Breaking of Nations: Order and Chaos in the Twenty First Century
* 2005 Michael Collins The Likes of Us: A Biography of the White Working Class
* 2006 Delia Jarrett-Macauley Moses, Citizen and Me
* 2007 Peter Hennessy Having It So Good: Britain in the 1950s
* 2008 Raja Shehadeh Palestinian Walks: Forays into a Vanishing Landscape
* 2009 Andrew Brown Fishing in Utopia: Sweden and the future that disappeared
2010 Andrea Gillies, Keeper: a book about memory, identity, isolation, Wordsworth and cake2011 Tom Bingham. The Rule of Law
2012 Toby Harnden, Dead Men Risen
2013 A.T. Williams, A Very British Killing: the death of Baha Mousa
Journalism category
* 1994 Neal Ascherson
* 1995 Paul Foot and Tim Laxton
* 1996 Melanie Phillips
* 1997 Ian Bell
* 1998 Polly Toynbee
* 1999 Robert Fisk
* 2000 David McKittrick
* 2001 David Aaronovitch
* 2002 Yasmin Alibhai-Brown
* 2003 Brian Sewell
* 2004 Vanora Bennett
* 2005 Matthew Parris
* 2006 Timothy Garton Ash
* 2007 Peter Beaumont
* 2008 Johann Hari
* 2009 Patrick Cockburn
Book Prize Shortlist 2008
* Nick Cohen What's Left?
* Jay Griffiths Wild
* William Hague William Wilberforce
* Ed Husain The Islamist
* Marina Lewycka Two Caravans
* Raja Shehadeh Palestinian Walks
* Clive Stafford Smith Bad Men
Journalism Prize Shortlist 2008
* Johann Hari The Independent
* Clive James BBC Radio 4
* Anton La Guardia The Economist
* Andrew Rawnsley The Observer
* Mary Riddell The Observer
* Paul Vallely The Independent
Book Prize Shortlist 2009
* Andrew Brown – Fishing in Utopia: Sweden & The Future That Disappeared
* Tony Judt – Reappraisals: Reflections on the Forgotten Twentieth Century* Owen Matthews – Stalin's Children: Three Generations of Love and War
* Hsiao-Hung Pai – Chinese Whispers: The True Story Behind Britain's Hidden Army of Labour
* Ahmed Rashid – Descent into Chaos: The United States and the Failure of Nation Building in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Central Asia
* Mark Thompson – The White War: Life and Death on the Italian Front 1915-1918
The winner will be announced April 22 during an awards ceremony at the Foreign Press Association in London.
2010 Longlist
Andy Beckett – When the Lights Went Out: Britain in the Seventies
576 pages, Faber
Brian Chikwava – Harare North
240 pages, Jonathan Cape
Nick Cohen – Waiting for the Etonians: Reports from the Sickbed of Liberal England
400 pages, Fourth Estate
Christopher de Bellaigue – Rebel Land: Among Turkey's Forgotten Peoples
288 pages, Bloomsbury
Ruth Dudley Edwards – Aftermath: The Omagh Bombing and the Families' Pursuit of Justice
384 pages, Harvill Secker
Petina Gappah – An Elegy for Easterly
288 pages, Faber; Farrar, Straus & Giroux
David Gardner – Last Chance: The Middle East in the Balance
256 pages, I. B. Tauris
Andrea Gillies – Keeper
256 pages, Short Books
Tristram Hunt – The Frock-Coated Communist: The Revolutionary Life of Friedrich Engels
464 pages, Allen Lane
John Kampfner – Freedom For Sale: How We Made Money and Lost Our Liberty
304 pages, Simon & Schuster
Kenan Malik – From Fatwa to Jihad: The Rushdie Affair and Its Legacy
272 pages, Atlantic Books
Vesna Maric – Bluebird: A Memoir
224 pages, Granta Books
Fintan O'Toole – Ship of Fools: How Corruption and Stupidity Killed the Celtic Tiger
250 pages, Faber
Michael Peel – A Swamp Full of Dollars: Pipelines and Paramilitaries at Nigeria's Oil Frontier
256 pages, I. B. Tauris
Sara Wheeler – The Magnetic North: Notes From the Arctic Circle
368 pages, Jonathan Cape
Richard Wilkinson & Kate Pickett – The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better
352 pages, Allen Lane
Ben Wilson – What Price Liberty? How Freedom Was Won and is Being Lost
480 pages, Faber
Michela Wrong – It’s Our Turn to Eat: The Story of a Kenyan Whistle Blower
400 pages, Fourth Estate
