Brooklyn College proudly celebrates Distinguished Professor of English Ben Lerner, who has been awarded the 2026 Orwell Prize for Political Fiction for his acclaimed novel Transcription.
Published in April and released in the United States by Farrar, Straus and Giroux and in the United Kingdom by Granta Books, Transcription delivers a haunting and intellectually provocative narrative that blends personal vulnerability with broader cultural critique. The novel follows a narrator navigating illness, memory, and the pervasive influence of digital technologies as he confronts the ways language, transcription, and mediation shape our understanding of reality. At once intimate and expansive, the book probes how we construct meaning—and mislead ourselves—through the stories we tell about hunger, love, connection, and the body.
Fiammetta Rocco, chair of judges for the Political Fiction prize, praised the work, saying, “For a book so slim, Transcription does so much. A forensic study of our insatiable appetite for new technology, it explores the unreliable stories we tell ourselves about hunger, love and connection.”
Lerner is a celebrated novelist, poet, and essayist as well as a recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship, often known as the “Genius Grant.” His genre-defying body of work has earned widespread acclaim for its originality and philosophical depth. Among his many honors, Lerner has also received a National Book Award nomination, been a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, and won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, further cementing his reputation as one of the most innovative literary voices of his generation.
Throughout his career, Lerner has challenged the boundaries between literary forms, seamlessly blending fiction, poetry, and criticism while examining the pressures and paradoxes of contemporary life. His work consistently invites readers to question the nature of art, authorship, and authenticity in a rapidly changing world.
Lerner was interviewed by The Telegraph about the award, which you can read here.
