The War Broadcasts

by George Orwell, W.J. West (Editor)

This volume, with its companian "The War Commentaries", re-creates the grim purposeful mood of Britain between Dunkirk and D-Day. The book brings together all the surviving BBC talks written and presented by Orwell during 1942 and 1943. Some of the talks are on sabotage, on rationing. Many are adaptations of plays or stories by H.G. Wells, Hans Anderson and Anatole France among others; assessments of writers who influenced Orwell, including Swift, Shaw and Oscar Wilde. A selection of the correspondence from several of the contributors to Orwell's programmes includes letters form E.M. Forster, Mulk Raj Anand, T.S. Eliot and Cyril Connolly.

336 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1987

About the author

Eric Arthur Blair was an English novelist, poet, essayist, journalist and critic who wrote under the pen name of George Orwell. His work is characterised by lucid prose, social criticism, opposition to all totalitarianism (both fascism and stalinism), and support of democratic socialism.

Orwell is best known for his allegorical novella Animal Farm (1945) and the dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949), although his works also encompass literary criticism, poetry, fiction and polemical journalism. His non-fiction works, including The Road to Wigan Pier (1937), documenting his experience of working-class life in the industrial north of England, and Homage to Catalonia (1938), an account of his experiences soldiering for the Republican faction of the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939), are as critically respected as his essays on politics, literature, language and culture.

Orwell's work remains influential in popular culture and in political culture, and the adjective "Orwellian"—describing totalitarian and authoritarian social practices—is part of the English language, like many of his neologisms, such as "Big Brother", "Thought Police", "Room 101", "Newspeak", "memory hole", "doublethink", and "thoughtcrime". In 2008, The Times named Orwell the second-greatest British writer since 1945.

Reviews

[Estha · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thank you for opening the world of politics to me. A very good source to know about colonial India and its influence on literature. George Orwell had a profound impact on literature and Poltics.