Tahmima Anam (author of Uprising, shortlisted for the Orwell Prize for Fiction 2026), Karen Bartlett (author of The Escape from Kabul, shortlisted for the Orwell Prize for Political Writing 2026) and Sam Dalrymple (author of Shattered Lands, shortlisted for the Orwell Prize for Political Writing 2026) in conversation with Rohan Silva, chair of the Political Writing panel in 2026. Named after George Orwell, the prizes honour writing that meets politics head-on, and that helps us understand the forces shaping public life. At a time when questions of truth, power, democracy, and freedom feel as urgent as ever, the shortlisted books offer us ways to think about the contemporary world.

Uprising by Tahmima Anam is an earth-shattering drama of resistance and female power, set on a desolate, sinking island, where a group of children witness their mothers living lives of cruelty and servitude. Through several characters, the book charts a rebellion that will upend their island, their world and the very order of things.

The Escape from Kabul by Karen Bartlett is a gripping story of rescue, survival and female solidarity, exploring the escape of nearly 200 Afghan women judges and their families, thanks to a network of professional friends, female judges and lawyers from around the world, who refused to abandon them to the Taliban.

Shattered Lands by Sam Dalrymple is a history of modern South Asia told through five partitions that reshaped it, for the first time presenting the whole story of how a single, sprawling dominion became twelve modern nations. How maps were redrawn in boardrooms and on battlefields, by politicians in London and revolutionaries in Delhi, by kings in remote palaces and soldiers in trenches.

Across fiction and nonfiction, reportage and essay, the evening will explore the ways in which political writing can challenge orthodoxies, document reality, and offer alternative ways of thinking about our future.