The Orwell Prize long list is out ... and "Easterly" is on it!

On Saturday night, on my flight from Zimbabwe, I read George Orwell's Decline of the English Murder and found myself vowing that when I grew up, I would write essays like Orwell. Then what do you know - I received an email last night to say that Easterly was on the long list for the Orwell Prize. The Prize was set up to pay tribute to those writers who, in the words of George Orwell, "make political writing into an art". I am really pleased to be included, especially as the long list includes four writers I like and admire, and whose books I loved last year: Brian Chikwava's Harare North, Michela Wrong's It's Our Turn to Eat, Michael Peel's A Swamp Full of Dollars and Ben Wilson's What Price Liberty? For the full long list of 18 books, see this link. The Orwell Prize, in addition to honouring books, also recognises journalists and bloggers.