FAQs

The Orwell Prizes aim to encourage good writing, reporting and thinking about politics. Every year since 1993, we have awarded prizes for books and journalism which come closest to George Orwell’s ambition ‘to make political writing into an art’.

For more information about the prizes today, please see our guide.

The Orwell Foundation, which awards the Prizes, is a charity dedicated to promoting public understanding of and interest in politics and current affairs through free public events and various other projects. As the only website officially sanctioned by the Orwell Estate, we also publish work by George Orwell (including our Webby-shortlisted Orwell Diaries blog) and articles about Orwell as well as other online resources.

The Orwell Foundation is distinct from, but works closely with, the Orwell Estate, The Orwell Society, and The Orwell Trust.

Winners of each Orwell Prize receive £3,000, a framed certificate and a Folio copy of a book by George Orwell.

For books, entries must be submitted by the publisher. Publishers can submit up to five books.

For journalism and Reporting Homelessness, someone involved in the creation of the work must be responsible for entering it. This may be the author, journalist publisher, agent, editor or a representative.

For all our Prizes, the person making the submission will be asked to sign a disclaimer on behalf of the author committing to abide by the rules and attesting that the entry is the author’s own work.

There are different eligibility requirements for each Prize, so please read our full list of rules.

Unlike industry awards, we have no entry fees and you don’t have to pay for a table to attend our Prize Ceremony.

Publishers who are shortlisted for either book prize are asked to make a contribution (£750) to the cost of promoting the shortlist and winner.

The Prize Ceremony usually takes place in Central London on or around 25 June (George Orwell’s birthday).

We aim to be open and transparent about how our judges are appointed and how the judging process takes place. Judges are appointed each year and published on the Foundation website. The judges are appointed by the Director and Prize administrators, subject to approval by the Board of Trustees.

The Orwell Foundation also appoints a Chair of Judges, who has equal voting rights.

Orwell Prize judges are independent. They are asked to put aside their own political preferences, and consider the entries solely on how far they meet the Prize criteria.

Early in the summer, the judges decide on a set of finalists (eight per prize), which is published on the Foundation website and widely publicised. The winners are announced at the Prize Ceremony in June.

All the Orwell Prizes open in November each year, but closing dates and eligibility periods vary between Prizes.

You can enter each Prize here, read the rules here, and read about our key milestones here.

Authors and journalists may only submit one entry per Prize, but the same writer may be entered for numerous prizes in the same year (i.e. theoretically, a writer could be entered for the Orwell Prize for Political Writing by their publisher, as well as entering themselves into the Orwell Prize for Journalism). Publishers can enter up to five books per prize, per imprint – further titles may be called in by judges.

The Blog Prize was discontinued in 2010. Jean Seaton wrote about why here. The Orwell Prize does not currently have plans to re-launch the Blog Prize.

All entrants will receive an update via email when the shortlists are announced in mid-May, unless they opt out. You can also sign up to our newsletter or follow us on social media for the latest information.

Unfortunately, the judges are unable to provide individual feedback on entries due to the number of submissions that are made. However, every entrant to The Orwell Youth Prize is entitled to individual feedback from our network of volunteer readers.

Entries vary across the prizes and year on year. The Orwell Foundation receives around 200 entries for each award, give or take.

Most of our events are open to the public and free to Friends of The Orwell Foundation. Check our events page for up to date information.

If you have an idea for an event, or would like to propose a speaker or a judge please contact us. The Orwell Youth Prize is always looking for experienced writers and researchers to provide individual feedback to young writers. Find out more about becoming a volunteer reader.

The Orwell Foundation is administrated by a small team based at University College London. Vacancies are advertised on our website.