On Friday 29th June at Pembroke College, Oxford the Orwell Youth Prize announced this year’s winners, runners-up and highly commended entries. The winners were awarded with their prizes by Richard Blair, George Orwell’s son, and Christine Richardson, Senior Communications Manager at Oxford University Press.
The awards were made following a day of workshops and debates featuring over one hundred entrants to the writing prize. The debate, hosted by Orwell Youth Prize patron Rick Edwards, asked whether the internet has done more harm than good for young people and featured contributions from Jamie Bartlett, author of The People vs Tech and writers James Ball, Pat Winslow and Delia Jarrett-Macauley. The answer from our entrants? A resounding no!
Congratulations to our winners, runners-up and highly-commended – and to all who entered. Every entry was read by at least two assessors, and the final winners were chosen by Chris Riddell, author, illustrator and former children’s laureate.
Winners
Junior Prize
- Manal Ali, ‘Be Glad It’s Not On Your Forehead’
- Joe Atkinson, ‘The Truths We Want to Hear’
- Niamh Weir, ‘Colony Collapse Disorder’
Senior Prize
Runners Up
Junior Prize
- Matthew Cormack, ‘Stolen Freedom’
- Rebecca Spruce, ‘A Message to North Korea’
- Hannah Davis, ‘The Beast Under the Bed’
- Esther Mayson, ‘The Biggest Lie’
- Sophia Fenwick, ‘Freedom is the Freedom to Say That Two Plus Two Equals Four’
- Wasif Rahman, ‘London’s Hidden Truth’
Senior Prize
- Lily Buchan, ‘Merit-NOT-cracy: The Myth of Modern Social Mobility’
- Justin Chan, ‘The Red and the Black’
- Emma Ferguson, ‘Brexit means Brexit’
- Jack Pitt, ‘Bread and Circuses: 2000 years on and have we not learnt?’
- Abigail Pope, ‘Human Rights Versus the Perceived Threat of Terrorism’
- Bria Purdy, ‘No’
The following entrants, from both categories, were also highly commended by the judges:
- Amelie Nixon
- Ned Wildgoose Bulloch
- Edward Patrick
- Imogen Duke
- Jazmine Bennett
- Ella Rousseau
- Nisha Baweja