Peter Marks explores the irony that George Orwell never experienced the fame, authority and controversy that his name and writing command over sixty years after his death.

George Orwell has been called the ‘most influential political writer of the twentieth century’ and ‘the greatest English essayist since Hazlitt’. He is credited with introducing the term ‘cold war’ in 1945.
He invented the terms Big Brother, Thought Police, doublethink and the telescreen.
The adjective Orwellian is used to describe government intrusion and malevolent power.
Peter Marks explores the irony that George Orwell never experienced the fame, authority and controversy that his name and writing command over sixty years after his death.
Peter Marks is Associate Professor at the Department of English University of Sydney, and gave this talk at Clare Hall, on 19 November 2013.

From Nineteen Eighty-Four to 2013 and beyond: The Surprising Legacy of George Orwell

University of Cambridge