About Orwell

Welcome to the Orwell Prize’s library of works about George Orwell and his work (and a few things about the Prize), consisting of material exclusive to this site and links to external sites. We’ll continue to add to the library, so please get in touch if you find any good work about Orwell online.

Articles and videos are arranged in alphabetical order, by author, after a link to University College London’s Orwell Archive.

Orwell Archive, UCL

• Orwell Archive (featuring manuscripts, photographs and other documents)
• George Orwell Archive gallery (a smaller collection of images)
• Follow UCL Special Collections on Twitter

Marina Rémy Abrunhosa

• Face-to-face encounters in Orwell’s early works (video)

Akala

• Doublethink: Interview

Noel Annan

• Artist in politics (New York Review of Books, £)

Andrew Anthony

• Orwell: the Observer years (The Observer)

Timothy Garton Ash

• Orwell in 1998 (New York Review of Books, £)
• Orwell’s List (New York Review of Books)
• Under the blanket (abridged version of the above, The Guardian)
• Orwell for our time (The Guardian)

Margaret Atwood

• Orwell and me (The Guardian)

John Banville

• Good man, bad world (New York Review of Books, £)

Julian Barnes

• Such, such was Eric Blair (New York Review of Books)

Stephen Bates

• Odd clothes and unorthodox views – why MI5 spied on Orwell for a decade (The Guardian)

John Baxendale

• Orwell and Priestley – two ways of being a left-wing writer in 20th Century England (video)

John Bayley

• The last Puritan (New York Review of Books, £)

BBC Archive

• Orwell at the BBC
• John Humphrys and Jean Seaton on BBC Radio 4 Today (audio)
• John Humphrys and Jean Seaton on BBC Radio 4 Today (video)

BBC Television

• Nineteen Eighty-Four (1954) (video) – more about the adaptation on Wikipedia

Norman Bissell

• George Orwell: The Socialist Who Loved Nature (Scottish Centre for Geopoetics on Vimeo, video)

Eileen Blair

• Eileen Blair to Miss Perriam, 17 January 1937 (regarding The Road to Wigan Pier)

Richard Blair

• Life with my Aunt Avril Blair (Finlay Publisher)
• Richard Blair in conversation with D. J. Taylor (video)

Francois Bordes

• La gauche hétérodoxe et la réception d’Orwell en France (video) (French)

Gordon Bowker

• Buy Gordon Bowker’s George Orwell (Abacus)
• Orwell’s London
• The Biography Orwell Never Wrote
• Orwell on the S. S. Stratheden
• The Road to Morocco
• Orwell’s Library
• When Orwell did a Kilroy (The Guardian)
• A paranoid rebel with tattoos on his knuckles (The Guardian)
• Why it’s Time for a New Edition of the Definitive Biography of George Orwell (Little, Brown blog)
• George Orwell and the Church of England

Piers Brendon

• The saint of common decency (The Guardian)

British Pathé

• The making of Animal Farm cartoon, 1955 (video, British Pathé)

Colin Brush

• ‘It was a bright cold day in April…’

Paula Byrne

• Orwell and Waugh, with D. J. Taylor (video)

Antoine Capet

• George Orwell and the ‘phoney left’, 1939-1945 (video)

Dominic Cavendish

• Coming Up for Air revisited – Orwell, England and the idea of escape (video)
• Extract from Coming Up for Air revisited – Orwell, England and the idea of escape (Finlay Publisher)
• From Animal Farm to Zog, an A-Z of Orwell (Daily Telegraph)
• On adapting Orwell (WhatsOnStage.com)
• The other George Orwell (Daily Telegraph)

Richard Cavendish

• Publication of 1984 (History Today)

Anna Chen

• George Orwell – a literary revolutionary? (International Socialism Journal, via annachen.co.uk)

Karl F. Cohen

• Halas and Batchelor’s Animal Farm and the CIA (Animation World Network)
• The cartoon that came in from the cold (abridged version of the above, The Guardian)

Cressida Connolly

• A woman and wife vindicated (The Spectator)

Alan Cox

• A reading of ‘An Incident in Rangoon’ (video)

John Crace

• The digested classic: Nineteen Eighty-Four (The Guardian)

Bernard Crick

• Biography of George Orwell (Oxford Dictionary of National Biography)
• Biography of George Orwell – audio (Oxford Dictionary of National Biography)
• On the Orwell trail (Granta, £)
• Orwell as a comic writer
• George Orwell – Voice of a Long Generation (BBC History)

John Crowley and S. Romi Mukherjee

• Orwell’s people (video)

Peter Davison

• A Life in Letters (video)
• Correspondence Between Orwell and P. G. Wodehouse
• Nightmare in Poland Street (video)
• Introduction to Burmese Days preliminaries
• Note on The Road to Wigan Pier
• Orwell – Religion and Ethical Values
• Orwell’s Morocco Diaries
• Orwell and Sport (Finlay Publisher)

Sebastien Denis

• La ferme des animaux revisitée – sur deux films et un album (video) (French)

Jacques Dewitte

• Orwell, un conservateur-libéral-socialiste? (video) (French)

Chris Durlacher

• George Orwell: A Life in Pictures (video)
• George Orwell: A Life in Pictures Q&A (video)

Terry Eagleton

• Reach-Me-Down Romantic (London Review of Books)

The Economist

• George Orwell: The master’s voice
• Orwell centenary: Blair-mania

Olivier Esteves

• Orwell, l’empire colonial et l’opinion publique britannique (video) (French)

Julio Etchart

• Burmese Days Revisited

Stuart Evers

• You don’t get to choose your literary heroes – Gordon Comstock (The Guardian)

Michael Foot

• An instinct for the future (The Guardian)

Paul Foot

• By George, they’ve got it (The Observer)

Gavin Freeguard

• In defence of prizes (The View from Here)
• Knowledge deficit (The Bookseller)
• Orwell Lecture 2007
• Orwell Prize Launch Debate 2008: Orwell, ID Cards, the Citizen and the State
• The Orwell Prize at Buxton 2009 (Buxton Festival blog)

Gill Furlong

• Gill Furlong, Ryan Kiggell and Jean Seaton on Burmese Days (UCL podcast)

Andrew Gamble

• Sir Bernard Crick (Oxford Dictionary of National Biography)

Keith Gessen

• Eternal vigilance (New Statesman)

Giora Goodman

• George Orwell and the question of Palestine (video)

Philip Gourevitch

• Philip Gourevitch and Will Self on the legacy of George Orwell (audio, Paris Review)

Robert Gray

• Orwell vs God (The Spectator)

The Guardian

• Books of the Day – Animal Farm, 1945 (The Guardian)
• Review of Nineteen Eighty-Four, 1949 (The Guardian)

Luke Harding

• Shadows of Orwell (The Guardian)

Alastair Harper

• George Orwell, patron saint of hacks (Prospect)

Robert Harris

• Interview with Sebastian Faulks on Winston Smith (BBC on YouTube)
• Introduction to 1984: Frail, cowardly Winston saved us (The Times)

Rob Hastings

• There’s more to George Orwell than politics (The Guardian)

Christopher Hitchens

• Buy Why Orwell Matters
• Fleet Street’s finest (The Guardian)
• George Orwell turns 100 (audio, NPR)
• How to make a decent cup of tea (Slate)
• Introduction to Animal Farm (extract)
• Nineteen Eighty-Four 60 years later (audio, NPR)
• Orwell’s list (New York Review of Books, £)
• Why Orwell Matters – extract (NPR)
• Christopher Hitchens and John Rodden on Orwell, on Think Tank (YouTube video, part 1 of 3)

Eric Hobsbawm

• Intellectuals and the Spanish Civil War

Charles Holdefer

• ‘As surely doomed as the hippopotamus’ (video)

Liam Hunt

• Why Orwell Went to Burma (Finlay Publisher)

John Hurt

• On 1984 (National Media Museum)

Ian Jack

• How often we bend true stories into the shapes of familiar fictions (talks of searching for Orwell’s birthplace, The Guardian)

Juliet Jacques

• The Connecting Door – Rayner Heppenstall (3:AM Magazine)

Sunder Katwala

• How not to succeed – an introduction to Keep the Aspidistra Flying (The Observer)

Frank Kermode

• The sharpest thorn (New York Review of Books, £)

Douglas Kerr

• Orwell, Kipling and Empire

Ryan Kiggell

• Gill Furlong, Ryan Kiggell and Jean Seaton on Burmese Days (UCL podcast)

Steve King

• Orwell in Spain (Barnes and Noble Review)
• Orwell’s warning (Barnes and Noble Review)

Emma Jane Kirby

• On the trail of George Orwell’s outcasts (BBC News)

John Krich

• Literary Pilgrimages: George Orwell (New York Times, free registration required)

Aleks Krotoski

• 1984 in pictures, one word at a time (Flickr)

Conrad Landin

• Michael Foot on Orwell (Spinebreakers)
• My father, George Orwell (or Uncle Eric) (Spinebreakers)

Emma Larkin

• Introduction to Burmese Days
• Extract from Finding George Orwell in Burma (NPR)

Christophe Le Dréau

• George Orwell, icône de l’Europe unie (video) (French)

Sebastien Lefait

• « The Big Screen is watching you » (video) (French)

Simon Leys

• The Intimate Orwell (New York Review of Books)

Scott Lucas

• George Orwell: timeline (eNotes)
• Nineteen Eighty-Four: timeline (eNotes)
• Orwell: saint or stooge? Email exchange with D. J. Taylor (The Guardian)

Sophie Mackenzie

• George Orwell’s hot and cold British menu (The Guardian)

Andrew Marr

• Words and things – Politics and the English Language, 50 years on (Prospect)

Dolores Martin

• George Orwell’s Homage to Catalonia, Rethinking the Spanish Civil War (video)

Steven Martin

• Orwell’s Burma (TIME Magazine)

Joseph Maslen

• Inside the whale of British communism (video)

Mary McCarthy

• The writing on the wall (New York Review of Books, £) – responses from Richard Rees and Gabriel Jansicas

Robert McCrum

• 1984: The masterpiece that killed George Orwell (The Observer)
• George Orwell and the eternal truths of good journalism (The Observer)
• Why it’s hard to conjure the spirit of Orwell (The Observer)

David McKie

• When fact is really fiction (The Guardian)

Timothy Naftali

• George Orwell’s List (New York Times)

New Yorker

• The Book Club: Down and Out in Paris and London (The New Yorker)

Paul Owen

• 1984 thoughtcrime? Does it matter that George Orwell pinched the plot? (The Guardian)

Carl Packman

• Orwell the Rorschach Test (Though Cowards Flinch)

Jeremy Paxman

• Introduction to Shooting an Elephant: The genius of George Orwell (Daily Telegraph)

Ben Pimlott

• Introduction to Nineteen Eighty-Four
• Introduction to Orwell’s England

Nina Power

• Bamboozle, baffle and blindside (New Statesman)

V. S. Pritchett

• The most honest writer alive: review of 1984 (New Statesman)
• Orwell ‘in Life’ (New York Review of Books, £)

Thomas Pynchon

• Introduction to 1984 (The Guardian, via Scribd)

Patricia Rae

• Modernist Orwell (video)
• Orwell, World War I modernism and the Spanish Civil War (Journal of War and Culture Studies, £)

Alex Renton

• George Orwell’s Christmas pudding recipe (The Times)
• Christmas pudding a la Orwell (The Guardian)

Paul Richards

• From Tory Anarchist to Democratic Socialist (LabourList)

John Rodden

• Papa and St George: The (Un)Meeting Between Orwell and Hemingway, with John Rossi (Finlay Publisher)
• Christopher Hitchens and John Rodden on Orwell, on Think Tank (YouTube video, part 1 of 3)

Jean-Jacques Rosat

• Ni anarchiste ni tory – Orwell et « la révolte intellectuelle » (video) (French)

Salman Rushdie

• Outside the Whale (Granta)

Loraine Saunders

• George Orwell – A Master of Narration
• Between 1984 and Brave New World: A Far Cry from Orwell’s Socialism (Finlay Publisher)

Jean Seaton

• Jean Seaton and D. J. Taylor on Orwell’s women on BBC Radio 4 Woman’s Hour
• Gill Furlong, Ryan Kiggell and Jean Seaton on Burmese Days (UCL podcast)
• How The Times silenced the voice of valuable frontline reporter (The Guardian)

Will Self

• Jura duty (Sunday Herald, via Charles’ George Orwell Links)
• Philip Gourevitch and Will Self on the legacy of George Orwell (audio, Paris Review)

Stephen Spender

• The truth about Orwell (New York Review of Books, £)

Peter Stansky

• Searching for Orwell: A Reminiscence (Finlay Publisher)

D. J. Taylor

• Buy D. J. Taylor’s Orwell: The Life (Vintage)
• Orwell – The (Brief) Life
• An Oxfordshire Tomb
• Orwell and the Rats
• Orwell’s Face
• Orwell’s Voice
• The ever-longer road to Wigan Pier: extract from afterword to Orwell: The Life (The Guardian)
• Orwell Reflects on Big Brother
• Orwell’s poetry (originally published by Finlay Publisher)
• Orwell and Waugh, with Paula Byrne (video)
• The Road to 1984 (video)
• Jean Seaton and D. J. Taylor on Orwell’s women on BBC Radio 4 Woman’s Hour
• Defeat into victory (New Statesman)
• Richard Blair in conversation with D. J. Taylor (video)
• Last days of Orwell (The Guardian)
• Orwell: saint or stooge? Email exchange with Scott Lucas (The Guardian)
• Beware the revolution (The Guardian)
• Another piece of the puzzle: Eileen O’Shaughnessy’s letters (The Guardian)

Gordon Thomson

• The House where Big Brother was Born (New Statesman)

Jeremy Tranmer

• Big brother watching friends and foes? (video)

Alan Travis

• How a real Big Brother kept an eye on George Orwell, the bohemian communist

Dione Venables

• Orwell – Plain Speaking and Hidden Agendas

Philippe Vervaecke

• Orwell as heritage – commemorations of Orwell in contemporary Britain, c. 1994-2010 (video)

Richard Vinen

• How Orwellian was Orwell? (Times Literary Supplement)

Nicolas Walter

• The clean smell of Orwell (Prospect, £)

James Walton

• What a Carry On!

Richard Westwood

• Battle of Vera Brittain versus George Orwell (Tribune)

Geoffrey Wheatcroft

• George at 100 (Prospect, £)
• More often right than wrong (The Spectator)
• St. George’s shroud (Prospect, £)

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