george orwell
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Literature as Ideal Propaganda
During the Cold War, the CIA viewed literature as a potent tool to undermine the Soviet Union. Novels by George Orwell, Albert Camus, Vladimir Nabokov, and James Joyce were smuggled across borders. And, as Nick Romeo explains in the Atlantic,…
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Back to the Beginning: Why I Write
In the beginning the words flowed like honey, like maple syrup, like corn syrup; yes, the metaphors flowed just like that.
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The Partisan Review, Digitized
The Partisan Review, printed from 1934 to 2004, marked 69 years of cultural history in the US, with notable contributors such as Hannah Arendt, James Baldwin, Samuel Beckett, Allen Ginsberg, Franz Kafka, Doris Lessing, George Orwell, Marge Piercy, Jean-Paul Sartre,…
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Classic Literature or Science Fiction Backstory?
Science fiction creates its whimsical magic by imagining new worlds, or sometimes even new universes, for readers to lose themselves in. But what if the best inspiration we can get for writing about the future comes from our past? A…
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Illustrated Orwell
Commemorating the 50th anniversary of George Orwell’s Animal Farm, Ralph Steadman has illustrated the classic satire with distinctive interpretations of the book. Brain Pickings has gathered some of the gleefully odd images.
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Writers on Time Spent Down and Out
George Orwell recounted his experiences with poverty in Down and Out in Paris and London, and Paul Auster his in Hand to Mouth: A Chronicle of Early Failure. Rumpus contributor Kaya Genç writes about his own brush with running out of money,…
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George Orwell’s Feminist Leanings
We all know George Orwell was a brilliant storyteller and a canny satirist. Was he also a feminist? This Brain Pickings post highlights an entry from his diary in which he describes helping a housewife with the laundry: The position…
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Homage to Catalonia by George Orwell
Graham Oliver reviews George Orwell’s HOMAGE TO CATALONIA today in The Rumpus Book Reviews.
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Which Do You Spend More Money On: Ebooks or Lattes?
In 1946, George Orwell wrote an essay called “Books vs. Cigarettes,” trying to figure out which habit cost him more and whether books were simply out of some people’s financial reach. For the Los Angeles Review of Books, Kaya Genç updates…
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You Can’t Have A Revolution Unless You Make It For Yourself
When a book is read, the story is transferred from the writer to the reader. Occasionally, however, the reader is allowed a glimpse into what the author may have been thinking through letters or interviews. When George Orwell wrote Animal…
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Error Correction or Information Control?
Great piece by Anthony Gottlieb over at The Economist on one potentially big upside for e-readers over books–the ability to correct errors in real time, without the expense of pushing out a new set of copies. From a purely fiscal…
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“Amazon.com is watching you.”
Amazon, we’re still mad at you. Last week, the company once again stirred waves of customer indignation when it remotely deleted copies of George Orwell’s 1984 and Animal Farm from users’ Kindles. The Rumpus covered the story here and here.