About this Event
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.
TAHMIMA ANAM is the author of the Bengal trilogy (The Golden Age, The Good Muslim, The Bones of Grace), and a recipient of the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for Best First Book and the O. Henry Award. Her short story ‘Garments’ was shortlisted for the BBC National Short Story Award. She is a Granta Best of Young British Novelist and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. Born in Dhaka, Bangladesh, she trained as an anthropologist at Harvard University and now lives in London.
KAREN BARTLETT is a writer and journalist, contributing to The Times, WIRED, Newsweek, TIME and the BBC. Karen was formerly the director of a leading campaign group for democracy and human rights, and is the author of five other nonfiction books including The Health of Nations, The Diary That Changed The World: The Remarkable Story of Otto Frank and The Diary of Anne Frank, and After Auschwitz with Eva Schloss.
SAM DALRYMPLE is a Delhi-raised Scottish historian, writer and award-winning filmmaker. A Persian and Sanskrit scholar educated at Oxford, with further study in Iran, he has worked across South and Central Asia, including with Turquoise Mountain in Kabul and the Aga Khan Trust for Culture in Hunza and Lahore.
In 2018, he co-founded Project Dastaan, a peace-building initiative reconnecting refugees displaced by the 1947 Partition of India. His debut film, Child of Empire, premiered at Sundance in 2022 and won the inaugural XR History Award from the Körber-Stiftung Foundation. Dastaan’s work has been shown at institutions including the Smithsonian, the V&A, the Asian Art Museum and the Partition Museum.
Dalrymple’s writing has appeared in The New York Times and The Spectator, and he is a columnist for Architectural Digest. In 2025, Travel & Leisure named him “Champion of the Travel Narrative.” His debut book, Shattered Lands: Five Partitions and the Making of Modern Asia, was an international bestseller and reached No. 1 in India. It was named a Best Book of 2025 by outlets including the Financial Times, The Spectator, NPR and BBC History Magazine, and has been shortlisted or longlisted for several major history and nonfiction prizes.
*Note, this is a Libreria event hosted at Second Home.
Event Venue & Nearby Stays
Second Home Spitalfields, 68-80 Hanbury Street, London, United Kingdom
GBP 0.00
