The Orwell Lecture 2024: Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe

The Orwell Memorial Lecture is given annually in memory of the author, essayist, and journalist George Orwell. Speakers are tasked with discussing ‘any topic Orwell might have been interested in’ - previous speakers have included Hillary Mantel, Ian McEwan Ian Hislop and Grayson Perry.

For the first time since the lecture was established in 1989, The Orwell Lecture takes place at the Southbank Centre, hosted on the Queen Elizabeth Hall stage.

This year’s speaker is Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe is a project manager at Thomson Reuters Foundation and has previously worked for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) and WHO in Iran.

She was detained in Iran in April 2016 and was held hostage in the Iranian prison system for six years. Many people campaigned for her during her incarceration, leading to her eventual release and subsequent return to Britain in March 2022.