1984
A01=Professor Richard Bradford
A01=Richard Bradford
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animal farm
antisemitism
Author_Professor Richard Bradford
Author_Richard Bradford
automatic-update
big brother state
brexit
Britain
Category1=Non-Fiction
Category=BGH
Category=BGL
Category=DNBH
Category=DNBL
Category=DSK
Category=FXP
Category=JPB
censorship
class system
classics
communist thinking
Controversial
COP=United Kingdom
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doublethink
eq_bestseller
eq_biography-true-stories
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eq_nobargain
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eq_society-politics
Eric Blair
fake news
fascism
Language_English
Literary Studies
misinformation
nineteen eighty-four
Orwel
Orwell
Orwell Readers
orwellian politics
PA=Available
Political History
political theorist
populism
post-war
Price_€10 to €20
PS=Active
socialism
softlaunch
Soviet Union
thought provoking
Trump
twenty-first century
Product details
- ISBN 9781448217694
- Weight: 238g
- Dimensions: 129 x 198mm
- Publication Date: 13 May 2021
- Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
- Publication City/Country: GB
- Product Form: Paperback
- Language: English
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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 Orwell’s 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 today’s 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, Orwell’s life is fascinating in its own right. Caught between uncertainty and his family’s 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 Britain’s status as an Imperial and world power had waned, but his work remains both prescient and significant.
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 Kingsley’s son, Martin. The Man Who Wasn't There, his account of Hemingway’s 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 Larkin’s best amateur photographs in The Importance of Elsewhere has inspired a BBC TV programme.
