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I was asked to join the judging panel for the Orwell Political Writing Prize during an unexpectedly hopeful period. I’d just secured a part-time university teaching position as a media lecturer, wrapped up several ambitious reporting projects, started crafting my book proposal after finishing an empowering publishing course for underrepresented writers by HarperCollins, and was shortlisted for Women in Journalism’s Georgina Henry Innovation Prize for founding New Tide, Britain’s only network amplifying East and Southeast Asian journalism. I’d also recently celebrated my one year wedding anniversary with my soulmate, and spent a dreamy London summer with friends visiting from home.
For once, things seemed to be going well, and a part of me basked in the afterglow; I took my dog to Regent’s Park, touched grass, and had a few too many glasses of sparkling wine during dinner: a comforting meal of Cantonese steamed fish over rice and century eggs. The other part, my anxious self, remained present but muted. For the first time in a long time, I felt truly happy and carefree.
Such moments of rest and joy are rare to come by and, I find, strange to experience during these markedly “Orwellian” times. Just weeks before, I’d been feeling pessimistic about my future prospects as a writer and journalist, socially drained, overwhelmed by attempting to manage a chronic illness using public health resources, and thoroughly depressed by the dumpster-fire-like state of our world.
I felt exhausted just following (let alone trying to cover) the chaotic news cycle in the three places I call home. That month alone, hundreds of pro-democracy activists in Hong Kong (where I was born and raised) were being charged or convicted for “endangering national security.” In the US, where I spent my development years, peaceful protests against Immigration and Customs Enforcement were being shut down by officials using excessive force. And here in the UK, the government was busy criminalising political dissent, while anti-immigration politicians called for the deportation of legally settled families to ensure that the country is mostly “culturally coherent.” And this didn’t even include news beyond my areas of expertise, such as the ongoing conflicts in Gaza, Ukraine and Sudan. I’d spent most of the year flip-flopping between work and escapism: spending half the day tracking the news cycle and pitching stories into what seemed like an abyss, and the rest engaged in escapism (binging novels and Netflix). My GP recommended that I increase the dosage of my antidepressants.
For a long time, the only books I could bear to read after work were fiction; I ended each day craving a break from the real world, and the prospect of reading anything else felt completely draining. I couldn’t remember the last time I read a political non-fiction book for pleasure; if it wasn’t a review or research for my job, I was too tired to make the effort.
Despite my burn out, I was very much aware that good political writing that moves people (in Orwell’s words, writing driven by “political purpose” or the “desire to push the world in a certain direction, to alter other people’s idea of the kind of society that they should strive after,” and is “artful”) is both urgent and presently under threat. Having spent over a decade reporting on global human rights, authoritarianism and marginalised communities, I’ve witnessed the erosion of our capability and willingness to safeguard such critical work; to foster and protect spaces that allow writers to interrogate systems and tell truth to power in an era of growing disinformation and political disillusionment.
So when the chance to help judge the prize came about, it felt like a sign: a pathway back into the process of deep reading, not just for escapism, but as a means to thoroughly engage with political topics in a much more deliberate way. It was a challenge and an invitation: one that I desperately needed, although I didn't know it at the time.
The judging process
As a feminist writer and journalist aware of the problematic aspects of Orwell’s legacy, particularly his treatment of women (read more here, here and here), I also had a fierce desire to use this platform to elevate the voices of people from marginalised communities. I was keenly aware of my positionality as the only female immigrant of colour in the judging room; writers like myself are not often invited into such spaces, and I was determined to make the most of it. I was determined to use my privilege to the best of my ability, by showing up as authentically and deliberately as I could and advocating for the books that I felt most passionately about.
Soon after accepting, I began preparing for the panel by re-reading Orwell’s writing, beginning with his famous essay Why I Write:
What I have most wanted to do throughout the past ten years is to make political writing into an art. My starting point is always a feeling of partisanship, a sense of injustice. When I sit down to write a book, I do not say to myself, ‘I am going to produce a work of art.’ I write it because there is some lie I want to expose, some fact to which I want to draw attention.
I resonated with these words; both as a politically-motivated writer and reader. What made political writing powerful? It wasn’t just about the urgency of the topic being covered; it was also the manner in which the argument was rendered: the way it's written, who by, and what the stakes were.
Armed with this framework, I threw myself into the judging process, which began with an initial meeting with James Tookey of the Orwell Foundation and my fellow co-judges (Katie Prescott of The Times, Lawrence Freedman of King’s College London, Sam Bowman of Stripe Press, and our lovely chair Rohan Silva, founder of the amazing Libreria bookshop. Over drinks and South Asian snacks in East London, James explained how the panel would function: each of us would read about 15-20 books, discuss which ones would move forward in an internal longlist, before cutting that into a shortlist of no more than eight books and picking one winner. We would be able to “call in” books for consideration; we’d meet regularly to discuss them.
This year, our prize category received more than 200 submissions; the prospect of whittling down so many books was daunting. To ground ourselves, we decided to focus on two aspects that we felt were most deserving of recognition: courage and clarity. Although our personal tastes, political leanings and expertise may differ, we agreed that any text we collectively put forward would capture both these elements – and strive to reflect a diversity of writers, topics and perspectives. Ultimately, we had a chance to champion what we believed was the best of political writing out there, and catapult these works into the mainstream literary discourse.
I finished my iced tea and was sent home with a bag stuffed with three hardbacks; we’d officially begun.
Political reading as pleasure
Over the next few months, I read more diversely than I had ever before in my life. We were sent books about everything under (and over) the sun: from artificial intelligence, spies, climate change and motherhood to corruption and the rise of the far right. We read books about aging in Japan, indigenous women-led communities, serial killers and antibiotic resistance. Some of them were bad, but many more were brilliant.
The more I read, the more I became aware of my own limitations. It made me realise that although I considered myself someone who reads widely, I too am in my own echo chamber. As an human rights journalist and Asia scholar, I spend a lot of time reading deeply on subjects like gender and race in Britain, US and the ESEA region – but I rarely delved into long reads from beyond these areas of expertise. I became all the more aware that the act of “political reading” itself must involve a concerted effort to do exactly that; in addition to paying particular attention to the power dynamics, relations and structures embedded within texts engaging with conflicting viewpoints.
The prize forced me to read beyond the comfort of my preconceived beliefs, beyond the certainty of my inherited perspectives. It stretched my frame of reference; and by doing so, allowed me to assess the well-worn narratives and questions I carry constantly against a wider backdrop. When we think of reading for pleasure, we often think of the immediate gratification of devouring an accessible and well-delivered plot line, a fast-paced narrative.
Yet there’s a more complex pleasure that comes with slow reading. It’s not always easy – in fact, it can be incredibly frustrating – but I would call it enjoyable nonetheless. It’s the pleasure of reaching for something in your mind and finally grasping it; of seeing something in a way you hadn’t previously considered and arriving at an unexpected or more nuanced understanding.
In our final meeting, I gifted all of the judges the latest copy of the magazine I edit, Translator, featuring reportage from beyond the anglosphere. Do check out our work here!
Our shortlist
I feel grateful to have taken part in the judging of this category in particular for it reminded me of the power of political writing. In all the works I had the pleasure of reading, I could sense our collective desire to understand how power moves and shapes the world around us, so that we may confront it: armed with courage and clarity.
As this judging cycle comes to a close, I’m immensely proud that our shortlist feels both representative and inclusive of the breadth of political writing out there, from the mainstream as well as margins of society. Our shortlist:
Israel: What Went Wrong? By Omer Bartov
For the Sun After Long Nights By Nilo Tabrizy and Fatemeh Jamalpour
The Escape from Kabul By Karen Bartlett
The Wall Dancers By Yi-ling Liu
The Elements of Power By Nicolas Niarchos
Stalin’s Apostles By Antonia Senior
Shattered Lands By Sam Dalrymple
Three Years on Fire By Andrey Kurkov
Yet my reading journey is just beginning. I plan to keep immersing myself in diverse books that interrogate systems of power, and will be analysing them here in my newsletter archive from the margins. I’m envisioning this to be a home for my critical reading, where I’ll engage with political writing through concise personal essays inspired by the books that energise, unsettle or surprise me.
Ideally, the newsletter will be an archive of my reflections on our “Orwellian” times, on our global anxieties and dreams, along with my curated list of recommendations aimed at those who also, like me, feel a desire to explore power from the margins. Do you have a political book to recommend, or reflections on how you approach reading you’d like to share? Drop a message down below – I’d love to hear your thoughts.
Join me by subscribing here and on Instagram @archivefromthemargins – thank you so much for your support and I look forward to reading together!