The Orwell Prize, based at University College London, is a British prize for political writing of outstanding quality. Two prizes are awarded each year: one for a book and one for journalism; between 2009 and 2012, a third prize was awarded for blogging. 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".
In 2014, the Youth Orwell Prize was launched, targeted at school years 9 to 13 in order to "support and inspire a new generation of politically engaged young writers" . In 2015, The Orwell Prize for Exposing Britain's Social Evils, sponsored and supported by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, was launched.
Bernard Crick founded the prize in 1993, using money from the royalties of the hardback edition of his biography of Orwell. Its sponsors are Orwell's adopted son Richard Blair, The Political Quarterly, and A. M. Heath & Company. The Prize was formerly sponsored by the Media Standards Trust. Crick remained Chair of the judges until 2006; since 2007, the media historian Professor Jean Seaton has been the Director of the prize.
1994 Anatol Lieven The Baltic Revolution: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and the Path to Independence1995 Fionnuala O'Connor In Search of a State: Catholics in Northern Ireland1996 Fergal Keane Season of Blood: A Rwandan Journey1997 Peter Godwin Mukiwa: A White Boy in Africa1998 Patricia Hollis Jennie Lee: A Life1999 D. M. Thomas Alexander Solzhenitsyn: a Century in His Life2000 Brian Cathcart The Case of Stephen Lawrence2001 Michael Ignatieff Virtual War2002 Miranda Carter Anthony Blunt: His Lives2003 Francis Wheen Hoo-hahs and Passing Frenzies: Collected Journalism 1991–20002004 Robert Cooper The Breaking of Nations: Order and Chaos in the Twenty First Century2005 Michael Collins The Likes of Us: A Biography of the White Working Class2006 Delia Jarrett-Macauley Moses, Citizen and Me2007 Peter Hennessy Having It So Good: Britain in the 1950s2008Raja Shehadeh – Palestinian Walks: Forays into a Vanishing LandscapeNick Cohen – What's Left?Jay Griffiths – WildWilliam Hague – William WilberforceEd Husain – The IslamistMarina Lewycka – Two CaravansClive Stafford Smith – Bad Men2009Andrew Brown Fishing in Utopia: Sweden and the future that disappearedTony Judt – Reappraisals: Reflections on the Forgotten Twentieth CenturyOwen Matthews – Stalin's Children: Three Generations of Love and WarHsiao-Hung Pai – Chinese Whispers: The True Story Behind Britain's Hidden Army of LabourAhmed Rashid – Descent into Chaos: The United States and the Failure of Nation Building in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Central AsiaMark Thompson – The White War: Life and Death on the Italian Front 1915–19182010Andrea Gillies KeeperChristopher de Bellaigue – Rebel Land: Among Turkey's Forgotten PeoplesPetina Gappah – An Elegy for EasterlyJohn Kampfner – Freedom For Sale: How We Made Money and Lost Our LibertyKenan Malik – From Fatwa to Jihad: The Rushdie Affair and Its LegacyMichela Wrong – It's Our Turn to Eat: The Story of a Kenyan Whistle Blower2011Tom Bingham – The Rule of LawAfsaneh Moqadam – Death to the Dictator!: Witnessing Iran's election and the Crippling of the Islamic RepublicChristopher Hitchens – Hitch-22Oliver Bullough – Let Our Fame Be Great: Journeys among the defiant people of the CaucasusD. R. Thorpe – Supermac: The Life of Harold MacmillanHelen Dunmore – The Betrayal2012Toby Harnden Dead Men RisenMisha Glenny – DarkMarket: CyberThieves, CyberCops and YouGavin Knight – Hood RatRichard Lloyd Parry – People Who Eat Darkness: The Fate of Lucie BlackmanSiddhartha Deb – The Beautiful and the Damned: Life in the New IndiaJulia Lovell – The Opium War2013A. T. Williams – A Very British Killing: The Death of Baha MousaCarmen Bugan – Burying the TypewriterPankaj Mishra – From the Ruins of the EmpireClive Stafford Smith – InjusticeRichard Holloway – Leaving AlexandriaRaja Shehadeh – Occupation DiariesMarie Colvin – On the Front Line: The Collected Journalism of Marie Colvin2014Alan Johnson – This Boy: A Memoir of a ChildhoodGaiutra Bahadur – Coolie WomanCharles Moore – Not for TurningDavid Goodhart – The British DreamFrank Dikötter – The Tragedy of LiberationJames Fergusson – The World's Most Dangerous Place2015James Meek – Private Island: Why Britain Now Belongs to Someone ElseRana Dasgupta – Capital: The Eruption of DelhiNick Davies – Hack Attack: How the Truth Caught Up with Rupert MurdochDan Davies – In Plain Sight: The Life and Lies of Jimmy SavileDavid Kynaston – Modernity Britain: Opening the Box, 1957–1959Louisa Lim – People's Republic of Amnesia: Tiananmen Revisited2016Arkady Ostrovsky – The Invention of RussiaWendell Steavenson – Circling the SquareJohn Kay – Other People's MoneyJason Burke – The New Threat from Islamic MilitancyFerdinand Mount – The Tears of the RajasEmma Sky – The Unravelling1994 Neal Ascherson1995 Paul Foot and Tim Laxton1996 Melanie Phillips1997 Ian Bell1998 Polly Toynbee1999 Robert Fisk2000 David McKittrick2001 David Aaronovitch2002 Yasmin Alibhai-Brown2003 Brian Sewell2004 Vanora Bennett2005 Matthew Parris2006 Timothy Garton Ash2007 Peter Beaumont2008 Johann Hari (prize revoked in 2011, monetary award not returned)Clive James BBC Radio 4Anton La Guardia The EconomistAndrew Rawnsley The ObserverMary Riddell The ObserverPaul Vallely The Independent2009 Patrick Cockburn2010 Peter Hitchens2011 Jenni Russell2012 Amelia Gentleman – The GuardianEdward Docx – The GuardianDaniel Finkelstein – The TimesDavid James Smith – The Sunday TimesSimon Kuper – Financial TimesPaul Lewis – The Guardian2013 Andrew Norfolk (The Times) and Tom Bergin (Reuters)2014 Ghaith Abdul-Ahad – The GuardianJames AstillJonathan FreedlandAditya ChakraborttyMary RiddellAA GillGideon Rachman2015 Martin Chulov – The Guardian2016Oliver Bullough – VariousIona Craig – VariousDavid Gardner – International Affairs Editor, Financial TimesShiraz Maher – The Guardian, New StatesmanDouglas Murray – Standpoint, SpectatorGideon Rachman – Chief Foreign Affairs Columnist, Financial TimesLouise Tickle – The Guardian, Family Law Journal2015 Alison Holt Care of the elderly and vulnerable, BBC2009 Richard Horton: "NightJack– An English Detective" [1]2010 Winston Smith (pseudonym): "Working with the Underclass" [2]Hopi Sen – "Hopi Sen" [3]David Allen Green – "Jack of Kent: A liberal and critical blog mainly about the misuse and misrepresentation of law" [4]Laurie Penny – "Penny Red" and others [5]Madam Miaow (pseudonym) – "Madam Miaow says: Of culture, pop-culture and petri dishes" [6]Tim Marshall – "Foreign Matters"2011 Graeme Archer: ConservativeHome2012 Rangers Tax CaseMs Baroque (pseudonym) – "Baroque in Hackney" [7]BendyGirl (pseudonym) – "Benefit Scrounging Scum" [8]Alex Massie – "Alex Massie" [9]Rebecca Omonira-Oyekanmi – "Rebecca Omonira-Oyekanmi" [10]Wiggy (pseudonym) – "Beneath The Wig" [11]Lisa Ansell – "Lisa Ansell" [12]In 2007, BBC's Newsnight programme was given a special award, the judges noting: "When we were discussing the many very fine pieces of journalism that were submitted Newsnight just spontaneously emerged in our deliberations as the most precious and authoritative home for proper reporting of important stories, beautifully and intelligently crafted by journalists of rare distinction." In 2008, Clive James was given a special award. In 2009, Tony Judt was given a lifetime achievement award. A posthumous award was made to Christopher Hitchens in 2012, his book Arguably having been longlisted that year.
In 2008 the winner in the Journalism category was Johann Hari. In July 2011 the Orwell Prize Council decided to revoke Hari's award and withdraw the prize. Public announcement was delayed as Hari was then under investigation by The Independent for professional misconduct. In September 2011 Hari announced that he was returning his prize "as an act of contrition for the errors I made elsewhere, in my interviews", although he "stands by the articles that won the prize". A few weeks later, the Council of the Orwell Prize confirmed that Hari had returned the plaque but not the £2000 prize money, and issued a statement that one of the articles submitted for the prize, "How multiculturalism is betraying women", published by the Independent in April 2007, "contained inaccuracies and conflated different parts of someone else's story (specifically, a report in Der Spiegel)". In October 2011, the NGO English PEN confirmed that Johann Hari had offered a donation equal to the prize money, in accordance with the wishes of the Orwell Prize trustees.
