Overview

• Judges presented the 2025 Orwell Prize for political writing at a London ceremony commemorating George Orwell's birthday.
• Alex Amelina accepted the award on behalf of his late wife.
• Looking at Women Looking at War was posthumously assembled from about 60% of Victoria Amelina's drafts and highlights the wartime resistance of Ukrainian women.
• After Russia's full-scale invasion in 2022, Amelina shifted from fiction to nonfiction and joined the Truth Hounds to document war crimes and human rights violations.
• Irish novelist Donal Ryan won the Orwell Prize for political fiction for Heart, Be at Peace with both categories carrying £3,000 awards.