An Interview With Delia Jarrett-Macauley, Winner Of Orwell Prize For Political Writing

Delia Jarrett-Macauley is a writer, academic and broadcaster with a career spanning over 20 years. Her books include a biography of the Jamaican feminist Una Marson and Reconstructing Womanhood, Reconstructing Feminism: Writings on Black Women (Routledge, 1996). The latter was the first British feminist anthology to examine concepts of womanhood and feminism within the context of "race" and ethnicity

Jarrett-Macauley's first novel Moses, Citizen and Me, (Granta Books, 2005) is a haunting tale about Sierra Leone's civil war, which forced guns on an estimated 15,000 children between 1991 and 2001.

In 2006, Moses, Citizen and Me won the George Orwell Prize for political writing. The annual prize is awarded to writers judged to have best achieved George Orwell's aim "to make political writing into an art" and seeks to recognize good accessible writing about politics, political thinking or public policy.

In their comments the judges said, "Anyone who has spent time in Africa can immediately recognize the power and truth of her descriptions. It is a work of great intimacy and moral complexity, the kind of writing that sheds light on a world we barely understand." Andrew O'Hagan, a member of the judging panel, added, "the book is one that Orwell himself might have liked."

Moses, Citizen and Me became the first novel to win the Orwell Prize for political writing since the award started 16 years ago.

Delia Jarrett-Macauley spoke about her writing.

What is your connection with Sierra Leone?

I was born in England to Sierra Leone parents, and had visited the country as a child.

When did you decide you wanted to write about Sierra Leone?

On the day I heard the report on BBC lunchtime news about a child soldier, Citizen, who had been compelled to execute his parents, I knew immediately that I would have to write about him.