A look ahead to next week's Festival
The Orwell Festival of Political Writing kicks off next week with two unmissable events
This year, we’ve teamed up with Substack and UCL’s Institute of Advanced Studies to put on The Orwell Festival, online and across central London.
The Orwell Festival kicks off next week with two unmissable events. The festival will open with Rebecca Solnit, whose Orwell Festival lecture on Wednesday 22nd June (7pm BST, London) will delve into themes from her book Orwell's Roses, which was recently shortlisted for The Orwell Prize for Political Writing. She'll explore George Orwell’s involvement with plants, particularly flowers, and how they illuminated his other commitments as a writer and anti-fascist. Tickets here.
Then, on Thursday 23rd June, join us as we welcome Dominic Cummings, Richard Evans, Gideon Rachman, and Katja Hoyer to unpack Otto von Bismarck’s understanding of political power. In 1944, Orwell lambasted Bismarck and the ‘modern cult of “realism”’ for whipping up ‘the revanchiste spirit in France’, leading to a long conflict in Europe. As Russia’s invasion of Ukraine brings retaliatory grievances back to the global stage, our panel will ask: is the German Empire’s first Chancellor’s approach to politics still relevant? 7pm BST - London. Get your tickets here.
You can browse the full schedule of events on The Orwell Festival website. Or visit the Orwell Foundation website to find out more about our work.
If you’re looking for the inside track on all our prizes and events, you’re already in the right place.
Each week we’ll bring you a round up of the headlines from the most recent events, and a preview of what’s still to come.
And we’ll share new writing and exclusive interviews from this year’s Orwell Prize finalists right here on our Substack, beginning later this week with an exclusive extract from Audrey Magee’s novel The Colony - ‘a brilliant and thoughtfully calibrated commentary about the nature and balance of power’, set on a remote island of the West coast of Ireland and shortlisted for The Orwell Prize for Political Fiction.
The Orwell Prizes’ Substack is free and open to all - all you need to do is subscribe.