The longlist of The Orwell Prize for Books 2018
The longlist of The Orwell Prize for Books 2018 features historical writing, fiction and for the first time a graphic novel.
The Islamic Enlightenment: The Modern Struggle Between Faith and Reason, Christopher de Bellaigue (Bodley Head). An absorbing account of the political and social reformations that transformed the lands of Islam in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries)
Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People about Race, Reni Eddo-Lodge (Bloomsbury). A book on racial inequalities, exploring issues from eradicated black history to the political purpose of white dominance, whitewashed feminism to the inextricable link between class and race
Threads from the Refugee Crisis, Kate Evans (Verso). Combining the techniques of eyewitness reportage with the medium of comic-book storytelling, Evans has produced a compelling view into the life of asylum seekers living in Calais’s ‘Jungle’.
Testosterone Rex, Cordelia Fine (Icon Books). A book explaining why past and present sex roles are only serving suggestions for the future. It reveals a much more dynamic situation through an entertaining and well-documented exploration of the latest research that draws on evolutionary science, psychology, neuroscience, endocrinology, and philosophy.
The Road to Somewhere – The Populist Revolt and the Future of Politics, David Goodhart (Hurst Publishers). An exposition of how the political elites have failed their societies. This investigation into the new global politics reveals how the Somewhere backlash is a democratic response to the dominance of Anywhere interests, in everything from mass higher education to mass immigration.
What You Did Not Tell, Mark Mazower (Allen Lane). In the centenary of the Russian Revolution, What You Did Not Tell recounts a brand of socialism erased from memory – humanistic, impassioned, and broad-ranging in its sympathies. But it also explores the unexpected happiness that may await history’s losers, the power of friendship, and the love of place.
Poverty Safari, Darren McGarvey (Luath Press). People from deprived communities all across Britain feel misunderstood and unheard. Darren McGarvey, aka Loki, gives voice to their feelings and concerns, and anger that is spilling over.
Age of Anger: A History of the Present, Pankaj Mishra (Allen Lane). How can we explain the origins of the great wave of paranoid hatreds that seem inescapable in our close-knit world – from American ‘shooters’ and ISIS to Trump? Pankaj Mishra answers our bewilderment by casting his gaze back to the eighteenth century, before leading us to the present.
Bitch Doctrine, Laurie Penny (Bloomsbury) Bread for All:The Origins of the Welfare State, Chris Renwick (Allen Lane). This collection of Laurie Penny’s writing covers everything from the shock of Donald Trump’s election and the victories of the far right, to online harassment and the transgender rights movement. These darkly humorous articles provoke challenging conversations about the definitive social issues of today.
Winter, Ali Smith (Hamish Hamilton). In the second novel in her Seasonal cycle, Smith’s shape-shifting quartet of novels casts a merry eye over a bleak post-truth era with a story rooted in history, memory and warmth, its taproot deep in the evergreens: art, love, laughter.
Lovers and Strangers: An Immigrant History of Post-War Britain, Clair Wills (Allen Lane). Clair Wills’ book brings to life the incredible diversity and strangeness of the migrant experience. She introduces us to lovers, scroungers, dancers, homeowners, teaches, drinkers, carers and many more to show the opportunities and excitement as much as the humiliation and poverty that could be part of the new arrivals’ experience.
The judges for the Orwell Prize for Books are politician, academic and journalist Andrew Adonis (Chair), Literary Journalist and Artistic Director of Words and Literature of the Bath Festival, Alex Clark, author Kit de Waal, and Lorien Kite, Deputy Life & Arts Editor for the Financial Times.
The shortlist for The Orwell Prize for Books will be announced at The Bath Festival on 18th May. The winner of the £3000 prize will be unveiled on 25th June 2018 at The RSA, together with the winner of The Orwell Prize for Journalismand The Orwell Prize for Exposing Britain’s Social Evils.
Previous winners of the Orwell Prize for Books include John Bew for his biography of Clement Attlee (2017), Raja Shehadeh (2008), Alan Johnson (2014), and Andrea GiThe judges for the Orwell Prize for Booksllies (2010).
The Orwell Prize 2018 is for work published in the calendar year 2018. For more details and rules of entry please visit www.orwellfoundation.com
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