Orwell Prize naar James Meek voor zijn Private Island: Why Britain Now Belongs to Someone Else

De Orwell Book Prize (er zijn ook Orwellprijzen voor journalisten en blogs) bekroont boeken die George Orwells ambitie 'to make political writing into an art' benaderen. In 2014 won Alan Johnson, eerdere jaren wonnen Anatol Lieven, Michael Ignatieff, Michael Collins, Robert Cooper en Peter Godwin. Op de shortlist stonden verder boeken van Rana Dasgupta, Dan Davies, Nick Davies, David Kynaston en Louisa Lim.

De jury:

‘As a jury we applied the “Orwell test” – making political writing into an art – and decided that this is what James Meek has done. He has not written a polemic or an ideological tract, but a careful and elegant exploration of what exactly privatisation has produced in our country. Political writing in Orwell’s tradition, and a prize by which to recognise it, has never been more needed.’