Friday 16 September 2011
Johann Hari, who was awarded the Orwell Prize for Journalism 2008, has returned the Prize. This followed allegations about Hari’s journalism, and the completion of an investigation by The Independent.
The Prize had investigated the allegations and came to a decision in July but had ‘reluctantly consented’ to delay its announcement, since Hari was not in a position to communicate with the Prize.
Orwell Prize at The Times Cheltenham Literature Festival
- Saturday 15th October, 10am: ’Victorian Values’ with Shiv Malik and Owen Jones
- Sunday 16th October, 6pm: ‘The Political Network’ with Graeme Archer and Oliver Kamm
More on Orwell and Wodehouse
In our previous newsletter, we gave you Orwell’s essay, ‘In Defence of P. G. Wodehouse’.
Peter Davison, editor of the Complete Works, has since been in touch with some more information – about the correspondence between Orwell and Wodehouse, and Wodehouse’s view of Orwell’s literary criticism of his work – which you can read on our site.
From the archive
University College London’s Special Collections archive – home of the Orwell archive – has digitised some of Orwell’s correspondence, including personal papers, manuscripts, book covers and photographs. You can also find some other archive images on our flickr stream, and in the image gallery of our Orwell Diaries 1938-42 blog.
Guardian Law has selected Tom Bingham’s The Rule of Law, winner of this year’s Orwell Prize, as their first ever book club choice. You can read Joshua Rozenberg’s take over on the Guardian website, and learn more about the book – and read the first chapter – on our website.
From elsewhere
- Although not affiliated to us, we wish the first Letchworth George Orwell Festival the very best of luck with their remaining events…
- …which include two performances of Michael McEvoy’s one-man show about Orwell, ‘The Last Man in Europe’
- The Telegraph ran an obituary of Richard Webster, shortlisted for the Orwell Prize for Books 2006 for The Secret of Bryn Estyn
- Norman Geras at normblog interviewed previously longlisted and previously shortlisted blogger, Nelson Jones (Heresiarch)
- Nineteen Eighty-Four (in 19th place) and Animal Farm (42nd) made World Book Night’s top 100 list
- Congratulations to Rachel Shabi on being shortlisted for the Anna Lindh award, for an article which also got her shortlisted for the Orwell Prize for Journalism 2011
- Julian Barnes made the shortlist of this year’s Man Booker Prize – he wrote ‘Such, Such was Eric Blair’ for the New York Review of Books in 2009
- D. J. Taylor sadly missed out on the Booker shortlist for Derby Day, but you can read some of his excellent work on Orwell on our website
- An illustrated edition of Edmund de Waal’s longlisted The Hare with the Amber Eyes is to be published – read the first chapter of the original on our website
The Wartime Diaries
The next entry will be published on 14th March.
The Hop-Picking Diaries
Over the next week, entries will be published on 18th and 19th September.
The Wigan Pier Diaries
The final entry was published on 25th March. If you’ve got any suggestions about our website(s), we’d love to hear from you – email us on gavin.freeguard@mediastandardstrust.org or follow us on Twitter. And you can subscribe to this newsletter via email.