Six Degrees longlisted for Orwell Prize 05 March 08

Six Degrees has made the longlist for the prestigious Orwell Prize. Here's the full press release:

Today the Orwell Prize announces its longlists for 2008 with its judges heralding a ‘new age’ of political writing.

18 authors and 12 journalists are now in the running for two prizes that reward those who have most successfully achieved Orwell’s aim ‘to make political writing into an art’.

A record 181 books have been submitted for this year’s book Prize, surpassing both the Man Booker and Samuel Johnson Prizes. 54 journalists, including some of Britain’s most renowned correspondents, have submitted for this year’s journalism Prize, also a record.

The judges were especially impressed by the quantity of passionate political writing that broke away from the constraints of traditional politics: novels on the lived experience of migration, polemics against the destruction of our wild places, personal accounts of religious extremism and travelogues exploring the political heart of Africa and China. And remarkable original journalism covering subjects as diverse as the new ‘scramble for Africa’, the re-birth of Al-Qaeda, the death of Benazir Bhutto, and even dentistry in Iran. All, work which is both urgent and significant, and which inspires political passion.

Chair of judges, Professor Jean Seaton, said: ‘Politics is more necessary than ever and yet in our safe democracies has spent a decade being reviled – but as this year’s Orwell entries show, we are on the brink of a new age of political writing. An ‘Obama effect’ is galvanising thought and risk-taking in a generation of political inventors in the Orwell tradition.’

This year’s judges are Professor Jean Seaton (Chair), Annalena McAfee (founder of Guardian Review), Albert Scardino (Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist) and Sir John Tusa (former head of the BBC World Service).

The shortlists (of six entries) will be announced at a panel debate, hosted by Reuters, on ‘The Personalisation of Politics’ on Wednesday 26th March. The winners will be announced at the Awards Ceremony, to be held at the Foreign Press Association on 24th April.