THE shortlist for Britain’s most prestigious political writing prize was announced in Canary Wharf on Tuesday.

The nominees for this year’s Orwell Prize were revealed at Thomson Reuters and include six books, seven journalists and seven bloggers in the running for �3,000 worth of prizes.

As part of the awards, a record 213 books were whittled down to just six and include Helen Dunmore’s The Betrayl and Afsaneh Moqadam’s Death to the Dictator!

Director of the Prize, Jean Seaton, said: “There is a recurrent theme in this year’s books, and it is very Orwellian: fear. For the first time we have had to seek to preserve the anonymity of an author, Afsaneh Moqadam on Iran, and from Dunmore’s gripping novel about life in Stalin’s Russia to Oliver Bullough on a previously unknown genocide, the horror of authoritarian power is displayed.”

The winners of each category will be announced at an awards ceremony at Church House, Westminster, Tuesday May 17.