George Orwell Now!

Preface by Richard Blair, Son of George Orwell

Richard Lance Keeble, Lee B. Becker

• Publisher: Peter Lang Inc., International Academic Publishers
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9781433129834
• eBook ISBN: 9781453916698
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Journalism
• Index: Literature

George Orwell remains an iconic figure today – even though he died in 1950. His dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four depicts a Big Brother society in which the state intrudes into the most intimate details of people's lives – and, not surprisingly, it became a constant reference point after Edward Snowden's revelations. The word «Orwellian» is constantly in the media – used either as a pejorative adjective to evoke totalitarian terror or as a complimentary adjective to mean «displaying outspoken intellectual honesty». Interest in Orwell's life and writings – globally – continues unabated.
Beginning with a preface by Richard Blair, Orwell's son, George Orwell Now! brings together thirteen chapters by leading international scholars in four thematic sections:
• Peter Marks on Orwell and the history of surveillance studies; Florian Zollmann on Nineteen Eighty-Four in 2014; Henk Vynckier on Orwell's collecting project; and Adam Stock on 'Big Brother's Literary Offspring'
• Paul Anderson «In Defence of Bernard Crick»; Luke Seaber on the «London Section of Down and Out in Paris and London»; John Newsinger on «Orwell's Socialism»; and Philip Bounds on «Orwell and the Anti-Austerity Left in Britain»
• Marina Remy on the «Writing of Otherness in Burmese Days and Keep the Aspidistra Flying »; Sreya Mallika Datta and Utsa Mukherjee on «Reassessing Ambivalence in Orwell's Burma»; and Shu-chu Wei on Orwell's Animal Farm alongside Chen Jo-his's Mayor Yin
• Tim Crook on «Orwell and the Radio Imagination»; and editor Richard Lance Keeble on «Orwell and the War Reporter's Imagination»
Peter Stansky, in an afterword, argues that Orwell is now more relevant than ever before.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Table of Contents
• Preface: An In-Depth Look into Orwell’s Complex Mind
• Introduction: Orwell Now: Nothing Less Than a Cultural Icon (Richard Lance Keeble)
• Section One: Orwell, Big Brother—and His Little Nephews
• Section Two: Orwell, the Literary Canon—and Further Explorations
• Section Three: Orwell: International Perspectives
• Section Four: Orwell and the Journalistic Imagination
• Afterword: Why Orwell Is More Relevant Today Than Ever Before (Peter Stansky)
• Contributors
• Index