Peter Apps’ magnificent account of the Grenfell fire tragedy and Tom Crewe’s historical novel about pioneering Victorian gay rights advocates will each receive £3,000
A “magnificent” and “forensic” account of the policy decisions leading up to the Grenfell Tower fire, Show Me the Bodies: How We Let Grenfell Happen by Peter Apps, has won the 2023 Orwell prize for political writing. Meanwhile, Tom Crewe won the prize for political fiction with his historical novel The New Life, which dramatises the struggle to change Britain’s laws related to homosexuality in the 1890s.
The prizes aim to reward works that meet Orwell’s ambition “to make political writing into an art”. The winning books, which are both debuts, were announced during a ceremony at Conway Hall, London, on Thursday. Each author will receive £3,000.
