Transcription by Ben Lerner wins Orwell prize for political fiction
Judging chair calls Lerner’s novel a ‘funny, brainy and timely’ study of our appetite for technology, while Karen Bartlett wins the nonfiction prize for The Escape from Kabul
TL;DR
- Ben Lerner won the Orwell prize for political fiction for his novel "Transcription."
- Karen Bartlett won the Orwell prize for nonfiction for her book "The Escape from Kabul."
- The prizes include a £5,000 award and aim to honor political writing as an art.
- Lerner's "Transcription" explores themes of technology and memory.
- Bartlett's "The Escape from Kabul" focuses on Afghan women lawyers threatened after the fall of Kabul in 2021.
- The judging chair praised Lerner's novel as "funny, brainy and timely."
- Rohan Silva described Bartlett's book as "taut and crisp" and "truly Orwellian."