Winners of the Orwell Prize for Literature announced in London

This year's Orwell Prize for Political Writing was won by two books: "Show Me the Bodies: How We Allowed the Grenfell Fire to Occur - a story about the tragedy of the same name and a historical novel about the first Victorian gay rights activists.

It was reported by The Guardian

The prize aims to recognise contemporary works that meet Orwell's ambition to "turn political writing into art", as the author himself wrote in his will. This year's winning books were announced at an event at Conway Hall in London. Each of the winners will receive £3000.

Peter Epps' report, Show Me the Bodies: How We Let the Grenfell Tower Fire Happen, tells the story of the politically motivated decisions that led to the Grenfell Tower fire, a tragedy that took place in 2017 and killed at least 70 people. Epps won the 2023 Orwellian Prize for political journalism.

Another winner, Tom Crewe, was awarded the prize in the political fiction category for his historical novel A New Life. The book depicts the struggle to change British laws on homosexuality in the late 19th century.

The prize jury, chaired by Martha Lane Fox, noted that the winner, Show Me the Bodies, is a one-minute account of the 2017 fire and said it "is grounded in the values of the Orwell Prize: it is a beautiful work about a devastating subject that we all need to understand."

The political fiction jury, chaired by writer Boyd Tonkin, said that Crewe writes about the social, intellectual and erotic lives of his characters in A New Life with extraordinary authenticity."

George Orwell, the writer to whom the prize is dedicated, was born in the British colony of India in 1905. During his lifetime, he wrote an impressive body of work, including short stories, novels and poems, but he is best known for his last two books, written shortly before his death - the political allegory Animal Farm and the dystopian novel 1984.