The Orwell Prizes 2022 Winners
It is our pleasure to confirm My Fourth Time, We Drowned by Sally Hayden and Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan as the winners of the 2022 Orwell Prizes.
Named in honour of the pioneering political journalist and prophetic novelist George Orwell, the Orwell Prizes are Britain’s premier award for political writing in both non-fiction and fiction.
The Orwell Prize for Political Writing Winner
Profoundly shocking, urgent and essential, Hayden's riveting volume about the twenty-first-century migrant crisis places testimony from a wide range of refugees front and centre, revealing an appalling level of abuse, deceit and cruelty - all tacitly sanctioned by European policy. Tracing corruption within the United Nations and the chilling reality of the modern-day slave trade, as well as the frustrations of aid workers and the despair of the migrants themselves, My Fourth Time, We Drowned is an immensely important and compelling read.
‘Hayden’s reporting is an extraordinary exploration of a modern reality using modern means: truly a book of our times. She gets the terrible truth out to a world that has been far too indifferent.’
Chair of Judges
The Orwell Prize for Political Writing Shortlist
The Orwell Prize for Political Fiction Winner
Set in a small Irish town in the run-up to Christmas 1985, Keegan’s exquisitely written novella paints an unforgettable picture of quiet courage and heroism as a coal and timber merchant prepares to confront the sins of the Catholic Church that have cruelly blighted the area’s past. Nuanced, moving and highly powerful, Small Things Like These is an intimate work which expertly illuminates universal themes.
‘The focus of this novella is close, precise and unwavering: a beautifully written evocation of Ireland in the 1980s, precisely rendered; of a good man and his ordinary life; and of the decision he makes that unlocks major, present questions about social care, women's lives and collective morality.’
Chair of Judges
The Orwell Prize for Political Fiction Shortlist
Previous Winners
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