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Charles Moore's prize-winning biography of Margaret Thatcher has been longlisted for the Orwell Prize for political writing.
The book, Margaret Thatcher: The Authorized Biography (Allen Lane), was named political book of the year at the Political Book Awards this month.
The Orwell Prize is made up of two awards, one given to a book, and the other to a journalist. The longlisted books were chosen out of 235 entries, while the journalists were chosen out of 167 entries. The winners in both categories will win £3000 each. The book prize longlist includes Shereen El Feki’s Sex and the Citadel (Chatto and Windus) and This Boy by Alan Johnson (Bantam).
The director of the Orwell Prize, Professor Jean Seaton, said the books entries offered “a snapshot of the zeitgeist”.
She added: “A number of themes, such as the economic crisis, family life, and gender equality were clear this year. On Russia, authors and publishers were peculiarly prescient. The entries by Oliver Bullough, Ben Judah, Catherine Merridale, and Simon Sebag Montefiore (the last two are longlisted) provide necessary background to the unfolding crisis. The politicians of the west ought to read them now!”
The judges for the 2014 book prize are broadcasters Sue MacGregor and Trevor Philips and Robert McCrum, associate editor of the Observer. Judges for the journalism prize are former BBC presenter, journalist and documentary maker, Robin Lustig, Pulitzer Award winning journalist and Professor of USC, Michael Parks, and Paul Anderson, former editor of Tribune and former deputy editor of the New Statesman.
The winners of both prizes will be announced in a ceremony on 21 May 2014.
The full longlists are:
Book Prize
Coolie Woman by Gaiutra Bahadur (Hurst)
The Tragedy of Liberation by Frank Dikotter (Bloomsbury)
Sex and the Citadel by Shereen El Feki (Chatto and Windus)
The General by Ahmed Errachidi (Chatto and Windus)
The World’s Most Dangerous Place by James Fergusson (Bantam)
The British Dream by David Goodhart (Atlantic)
Kith: The Riddle of the Childscape by Jay Griffiths (Hamish Hamilton)
This Boy by Alan Johnson (Bantam)
The Red Fortress by Catherine Merridale (Allen Lane)
Margaret Thatcher: The Authorized Biography by Charles Moore (Allen Lane)
Edmund Burke by Jesse Norman (William Collins)
The Confidence Trap by David Runciman (Princeton University Press)
One Night in Winter by Simon Sebag Montefiore (Century)
The XX Factor by Alison Wolf (Profile)
Journalism Prize
Ghaith Abdul-Ahad, The Guardian
James Astill, The Economist
Aditya Chakrabortty, The Guardian
David Cohen, London Evening Standard
Matthew Engel, Financial Times
Jonathan Freedland, The Guardian
AA Gill, The Sunday Times
David Hencke, Exaro News
Anthony Loyd, The Times
Suzanne Moore, The Guardian
Caitlin Moran, The Times
Peter Oborne, The Daily Telegraph
Gideon Rachman, Financial Times
Mary Riddell, The Daily Telegraph
Paul Wood, BBC, The Spectator