Victoria Amelina wins with her unfinished book Looking at Women Looking at War while Donal Ryan takes the award for political fiction with an intimate portrait of an Irish town
A novelist killed in the Ukraine war has won the Orwell prize for political writing.
Victoria Amelina, who died in July 2023 from injuries sustained in a Russian bombing of a restaurant in Kramatorsk, won the prize with her unfinished book Looking at Women Looking at War.
The book – Amelina’s only work of nonfiction – documents the resistance efforts of Ukrainian women, including a soldier, a human rights activist and a librarian. “The effect is of an ensemble of female voices, not a solo aria”, wrote Charlotte Higgins in a Guardian review. The book is “an important piece of testimony and a precious, powerful work of literature: a steady beam of light born amid darkness and violence”.
Amelina “brings to her narrative the acuity of a journalist and the artistry of a born writer, making her a true heir of George Orwell”, said judging chair Kim Darroch.
