Вікторія Амеліна, українська письменниця, яка загинула у липні 2023 року після російського обстрілу ресторану в Краматорську, посмертно стала лауреаткою премії Джорджа Орвелла за політичну літературу. Її незавершена книга «Дивлячись на жінок, дивлячись на війну» стала першим документальним твором авторки.

“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. Meanwhile, Irish writer Donal Ryan was awarded the Orwell prize for political fiction for Heart, Be at Peace, which is set in rural Ireland and told in 21 voices. The book is a follow-up to his debut The Spinning Heart, which won the 2013 Guardian first book award. The mosaic of voices in Heart, Be at Peace becomes “a kind of simulacrum of life, as if we have been landed in this village, have a chance to overhear its inhabitants’ most private thoughts, move from one house to another, sit in the pub, discover who believes who is to blame for what, and what can be excused or forgiven,” wrote Erica Wagner in her Guardian review.” – про це повідомляє The Guardian.