Professor Sarah Churchwell longlisted for the Orwell Prize for Journalism

Professor Churchwell is a regular contributor to newspapers including the Guardian, New Statesman, Financial Times, Times Literary Supplement, and New York Review of Books. Her most recent book is Behold, America: A History of America First and the American Dream (2018).

Four of her essays were cited by the Orwell Prize judges:

• White Lies Matter (Prospect, 10 July 2020)
• American Fascism: It Has Happened Here (New York Review of Books,  22 June 2020)
• The Return of American Fascism (New Statesman, 2 September 2020)
• Can American Democracy Survive Donald Trump? (Guardian, 21 November 2020).

Professor Churchwell will participate in a related online event hosted by Griffin Books on Monday 17 May 2021.

She will join the historians Anne Applebaum and Richard Evans for a discussion of ‘Conspiracy’. Ticket information will be available in due course on the Griffin Books website. Professor Churchwell said:

It's a tremendous honor to be longlisted for the prize named for one of our greatest political writers, especially with so many other writers whose work I admire and learn from

The 2021 Orwell Prize for Journalism longlist features the year’s best political commentary alongside brave and methodical collaborative reporting on subjects from the impact of COVID-19 in the UK to authoritarian impunity across the globe, all in pursuit of Orwell’s own ambition ‘to make political writing into an art’.

The shortlist will be announced later in the spring, while the winner of the prize, worth £3,000, will be revealed in June 2021.

The five judges for the 2021 Orwell Prize for Journalism include:

• Carrie Gracie (chair), former BBC China editor and author of ‘Equal: How We Fix the Gender Pay Gap’
• Clive Myrie, multi-award winning journalist and broadcaster
• Iain Martin, editor, publisher, and co-founder of Reaction
• Kamran Abbasi, doctor, and executive editor for content at the British Medical Journal
• Rosie Blau, editor of the Economist’s 1843 Magazine.

Through its prizes, events, workshops and resources, the Orwell Foundation aims to offer a platform for debate and discussion designed to appeal to the widest possible public audience, connecting with everyone to whom George Orwell and his writings are a source of inspiration.