- Dickens: Philip Hensher (novelist, critic, Booker Prize-shortlisted for The Northern Clemency)
- Orwell: Jean Seaton (Director of the Orwell Prize, academic)
- Dickens: Jenny Hartley (academic, author of Dickens and the House of Fallen Women)
- Orwell: Hardeep Singh Kohli (writer and broadcaster)
- Chaired by Francine Stock (BBC Radio 4)
The first of the Orwell Prize’s events at the Sunday Times Oxford Literary Festival 2009.
In 1939, George Orwell composed a famous essay about Charles Dickens. ‘When one reads any strongly individual piece of writing, one has the impression of seeing a face somewhere behind the page,’ wrote Orwell. But in this contest between two of Britain’s greatest writers, which face will fit? Both Orwell and Dickens will have two advocates speaking up for them in this debate – and you, the audience, will get to vote on which is the greatest author.
- George Orwell: Charles Dickens
- Orwell Prize events at the Oxford Literary Festival 2010
- Orwell Prize events at the Oxford Literary Festival 2009
- Orwell Prize event at the Oxford Literary Festival 2008