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HarperCollins has three titles on the 12-strong Orwell Book Prize longlist, with the judges praising the "range of writing, the passion of the research and the variety of manners" in the chosen titles.
On the Front Line by the late war reporter Marie Colvin (HarperPress), Bad Pharma by Ben Goldacre (Fourth Estate), examining the global pharmaceutical industry, and The Spanish Holocaust by Paul Preston (HarperPress), looking at the legacy of dictator General Franco, are the three HC titles on the longlist for the £3,000 prize.
Penguin and Random House have both also scored two titles—Plutocrats by Chrystia Freeland (Penguin) and From the Ruins of the Empire by Pankaj Mishra (Allen Lane) from Penguin, and Injustice by Clive Stafford Smith (Harvill Secker) and A T Williams' A Very British Killing (Jonathan Cape) from Random House.
Carmen Bugan's Burying the Typewriter (Picador), Ioan Grillo's El Narco (Bloomsbury), Leaving Alexandria by Richard Holloway (Canongate), Occupation Diaries by Raja Shehadeh (Profile Books), and Daniel Trilling's debut Bloody Nasty People (Verso Books) complete the longlist.
The judges whittled down 210 entries to the 12 on the longlist, and the chair of the judges Jean Seaton said: "This year's longlisted books show just how carefully they have to be crafted. The range of writing, the passion of the research and the variety of manners in this marvellous set of books show a confident important writing culture. Go out and read them."
Fourteen journalists have also been longlisted for the Journalism Prize, narrowed down from a record field of 155 entries. They include Canongate author James Meek, for his work on the London Review of Books.
The prizes look to reward work which comes closest of George Orwell's ambition to "make political writing into an art". The shortlist announcement will come on 17th April, with the awards ceremony to be held on 15th May.