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Hennessy wins Orwell prize

26.04.07

The Guardian reports that a study of Britain in the 50s and the rise of Harold "Supermac" Macmillan, has been awarded the Orwell prize for political writing. Peter Hennessy's Having It So Good: Britain in the Fifties charts Britain emerging from the shadow of war into an era of growing affluence and through the premierships of Churchill, Eden and Macmillan.

The book, which has also been longlisted for the Samuel Johnson prize for non-fiction, is the second in a five-volume history of postwar Britain widely described by reviewers as "magisterial".

The prize, sponsored by Reuters, is awarded annually to two writers who are judged to have best achieved George Orwell's aim "to make political writing into an art". Each winner from the two categories (one for journalism and one for a book or pamphlet) receives £1,000. The writing must be of a kind that is aimed at the general reader rather than specialist or academic audiences.

The winner in the journalism category is Peter Beaumont of the Observer.

Guardian

Prizes Orwell Prize

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