Khaled and Mustafa meet at university in Edinburgh: two Libyan eighteen-year-olds expecting to return home after their studies. In a moment of recklessness and courage, they travel to London to join a demonstration in front of the Libyan embassy. When government officials open fire on protestors in broad daylight, both friends are wounded, and their lives forever changed. Over the years that follow, Khaled, Mustafa and their friend Hosam, a writer, are bound together by their shared history. If friendship is a space to inhabit, theirs becomes small and inhospitable when a revolution in Libya forces them to choose between the lives they have created in London and the lives they left behind. 

- Browns Books Synopsis

George Orwell cared not only about what he wrote, but how he wrote it. His assessment of what makes for good writing – and bad writing – is as relevant today as it was in 1946, when his essay Why I Write was published. The following passage from Why I Write illuminates the central qualities The Orwell Prizes reward Political purpose, Clarity of expression, Intellectual courage, Critical thought and Artful writing.