Unfinished book by Victoria Amelina, killed in the war in Ukraine, wins Orwell Prize for Political Writing & Donal Ryan wins Prize for Political Fiction
Ukrainian novelist and war crimes investigator Victoria Amelina has posthumously won The Orwell Prize for Political Writing for her book Looking at Women, Looking at War, a powerful examination of women’s courage in resistance.
Donal Ryan has won the political fiction prize for Heart, Be at Peace which explores modern challenges facing a small tight-knit community in Ireland.
When Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022, Amelina transformed from novelist to war crimes researcher and chronicler of extraordinary women who joined the resistance. Her final work, Looking at Women Looking at War, documents the stories of Ukrainian women involved in the struggle against Russian occupiers, including human rights advocate Oleksandra Matviichuk, lawyer and military servicewoman Yevheniia Zakrevska, and librarian Yuliia Kakulia-Danyliuk. This interrupted diary serves as a vital contemporary historical document, showing the inside of modern war beyond heroic combat.
Amelina transformed from novelist to war crimes researcher and chronicler of extraordinary women who joined the resistance
Born in County Tipperary, in 1976, Donal Ryan holds a law degree from the University of Limerick where he now lectures in Creative Writing. A former civil servant for many years, he was only able to devote himself to writing from 2014 following the success of The Spinning Heart. His debut novel was shortlisted for the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, longlisted for the Man Booker Prize, and named Irish Book of the Decade. All of his novels have been number one bestsellers in Ireland.
Heart, Be at Peace explores the 21st century problems of a small community in Ireland. Set ten years after The Spinning Heart, Ryan returns to the same Irish town, telling the story through twenty-one interconnected voices as the community faces contemporary challenges including social media, drugs, and illegal industries that threaten local children while the older generation struggles to protect what they hold dear.
Speaking on RTÉ news this morning, Ryan spoke of how moving last night’s prize-giving ceremony was, as Victoria Amelina‘s husband accepted the prize on behalf of his late wife. He said that Heart, Be at Peace was mired in his own experience, and that when you write about people, you are inevitably writing about politics.
Chair of Judges for The Orwell Prize for Political Writing, Lord Kim Darroch, said that reading the books for the prize was a tour around some of the most pressing and important issues of our time.
She brings to her narrative the acuity of a journalist and the artistry of a born writer, making her a true heir of George Orwell. The result is an unforgettable picture of the human consequences of war
‘But ultimately, the key criteria for a book prize is the writing itself, and our winner is a book which brings together so many of the things we were looking for when reading for the prize: bravery, beauty, insight and complexity. Victoria Amelina was a successful Ukrainian novelist, and founder of a book festival, living in the Donetsk region of Eastern Ukraine. The Russian invasion stripped all of this away overnight. Rather than fleeing the country, she travelled it, supporting humanitarian projects, helping others evacuate, researching war crimes, and chronicling the harrowing, sometimes surreal, challenges and experiences of living in a war zone. Then, on 27 June 2023, she was in a pizzeria in Kramatorsk when it was hit by a Russian missile. Sixty-four were injured and thirteen killed. Victoria was amongst them.
‘Her book, Looking at Women, Looking at War, put together after her death by a group of friends and colleagues, is unavoidably fragmentary – a collection of diary entries, interviews, audio files, notes and drafts. But it is all the more powerful for its episodic structure, conjuring up the reality of daily life when mere survival is an achievement. She brings to her narrative the acuity of a journalist and the artistry of a born writer, making her a true heir of George Orwell. The result is an unforgettable picture of the human consequences of war.”
For its clarity. For its twenty-one perfectly pitched voices. For the neatness and breadth of its form. For its humanity and kindness.
Chair of Judges for The Orwell Prize for Political Fiction, Jim Crace, said that there was an outstanding shortlist but one emerged as the overall champion.
‘For its clarity. For its twenty-one perfectly pitched voices. For the neatness and breadth of its form. For its humanity and kindness. Here is a small deprived community in rural Ireland – after the Good Friday Peace Accord and the collapse of the Celtic Tiger – suffering and recovering from the bruises of its political and economic past. The boom years – in both senses of that word, might be over – but, in Donal Ryan’s exceptional Heart, Be At Peace, the echoes still reverberate and hum.’
