Colson Whitehead, Bernardine Evaristo on Orwell Prize 2020 shortlist.

Colson Whitehead and Bernardine Evaristo are on the shortlist of the Orwell Prize 2020 announced on June 25, 2019.

The Orwell Prizes, named in honour of English novelist, essayist, journalist and critic George Orwell, are the UK’s most prestigious prizes for political writing. The Orwell Foundation annually awards prizes for work which comes closest to George Orwell’s ambition ‘to make political writing into an art’. Starting in 1994, winners of the Orwell Prize were recognised in the categories of political writing and journalism. In 2018, they launched The Orwell Prize for Political Fiction, to be awarded for the first time in June 2019. Novuyo Rosa Tshuma and Diana Evans made the shortlist.

The judges for 2020 are Jude Kelly CBE (Chair), Tom Gatti, Sarah Shaffi, and Matthew Sperling. The team has announced the longlist for the prize on May 21. They revealed the shortlist for the prize and those still in the running are;

• Ducks, Newburyport by Lucy Ellmann.
• Girl by Edna O’Brien.
• Girl, Woman, Other, by Bernardine Evaristo.
• Heaven, My Home by Attica Locke.
• The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead.
• The Wall by John Lanchester.