A book about the legacy of the Easter Rising and one about how Hillsborough changed the country are on the shortlist for the Orwell Prize for Books.

The six works in the running for Britain's most prestigious prize for political writing were announced on Monday at a special lecture by Ruth Davidson MSP, co-hosted by the Constitution Unit at University College London.

Named after 1984 author George Orwell, the £3,000 prize rewards the writing that comes closest to achieving his ambition of "making political writing an art".

Ruth Dudley Edwards' The Seven, about the Easter Rising, and Adrian Tempany's And The Sun Shines Now, about "what arrived in the wake of unquestionably the most controversial tragedy in the post-war era of Britain's history" are on the list alongside Citizen Clem by John Bew, All Out War by Tim Shipman and Island Story by JD Taylor.

The list is rounded out by Another Day In The Death Of America, by The Guardian writer Gary Younge, which focuses on November 23 2013, when 10 children and teens were killed by gunfire in the United States.

Judges Jonathan Derbyshire, Bonnie Greer, Mark Lawson and Erica Wagner said: "Regardless of the result of the General Election, all six books have something prescient to say about what is going on in the belly of the country right now, and how this is inextricably related to events in the wider world."

Previous winners of The Orwell Prize for Books include Arkady Ostrovsky, Raja Shehadeh, Alan Johnson and Andrea Gillies.

The winner will be announced on June 15.