A vivid portrait of the man behind the writings, placing Orwell and his work at the centre of the current political landscape. One of the most enduringly popular and controversial writers of the twentieth century, George Orwells work is as relevant today as it was in his own lifetime. Possibly, in the age of Brexit, Trump, and populism, even more so. Doublethink features in Nineteen Eighty-Four and it is the forerunner to Fake News. He foresaw the creation of the EU and more significantly he predicted that post-Imperial xenophobia would cause Britain to leave it. His struggle with his own antisemitism could serve as a lesson to todays Labour Party, and, while the Soviet Union is gone, China has taken its place as a totalitarian superpower. Aside from his importance as a political theorist and novelist, Orwells life is fascinating in its own right. Caught between uncertainty and his familys upper middle-class complacency, Orwell grew to despise the class system that spawned him despite finding himself unable to fully detach himself from it. His life thereafter mirrored the history of his country; like many from his background, he devoted himself to socialism as a salve to his conscience. In truth he reserved as much suspicion and distaste for the proles as he did pity. He died at the point when Britains status as an Imperial and world power had waned, but his work remains both prescient and significant.
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Product Details
Weight: 238g
Dimensions: 129 x 198mm
Publication Date: 13 May 2021
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Publication City/Country: United Kingdom
Language: English
ISBN13: 9781448217694
About Professor Richard BradfordRichard Bradford
Richard Bradford is Research Professor in English at Ulster University and Visiting Professor at the University of Avignon. He has published over twenty-five acclaimed books including a biography of Philip Larkin which was an Independent Book of the Year the authorised biography of Alan Sillitoe a life of Kingsley Amis and a biography of Kingsleys son Martin. The Man Who Wasn't There his account of Hemingways life is a bombshell biography according to The Sunday Times. Most recently he has delved into the troubled life of Patricia Highsmith in Devils Lusts and Strange Desires. He has written for The Spectator and The Sunday Times and has been interviewed on his work for various BBC Radio Arts Programmes as well as appearing on the Channel 4 Series Writers in their Own Words. His compilation of Philip Larkins best amateur photographs in The Importance of Elsewhere has inspired a BBC TV programme.