Transcription by Ben Lerner wins Orwell prize for political fiction

Ben Lerner has won this year’s Orwell prize for political fiction for Transcription, a novel that explores technology and memory. The awards aim to highlight books that best meet Orwell’s ambition "to make political writing into an art" and carry a £5,000 prize.

The opening section follows the narrator to Providence, Rhode Island, where he travels to conduct a final interview with an eccentric German intellectual, Thomas. After dropping his phone in the sink and losing his recording device, he continues the conversation without telling Thomas.

"A forensic study of our insatiable appetite for new technology, [Transcription] explores the unreliable stories we tell ourselves about hunger, love and connection," said judging chair Fiammetta Rocco, who helmed the International Booker prize for 20 years. "It is about dying with dignity and growing up in a new world.

United States, Providence, Rhode Island

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