Friday 30 September 2011
With the final entry of Orwell’s Hop-Picking diary being published shortly, we’ve just added some more of Orwell’s writing on tramping to our website.
‘A Day in the Life of a Tramp’ was written by Orwell in 1929. Signed ‘Eric Blair’, it was published in the French magazine, Le Progrès Civique, and has since been translated back into English. ‘The Spike’, meanwhile, was first published in 1931 and then reworked for a chapter in Down and Out in Paris and London.
If that isn’t enough, there are links to more of Orwell’s works on poverty on our Down and Out in Paris in London, A Clergyman’s Daughter, and The Road to Wigan Pier pages. There’s also our Road to Wigan Pier diary blog – and supporting Google Map, flickr images, and notes on Barnsley, Sheffield and Wigan – as well as the Hop-Picking diary blog.
The Orwell Prize and Johann Hari
On Thursday 29th September we updated our statement on Johann Hari, who has offered to return the prize money awarded to him in 2008. Read the full story on our website.
Orwell Prize at The Times Cheltenham Literature Festival
- Saturday 15th October, 10am: ’Victorian Values’ with Shiv Malik and Owen Jones
- Sunday 16th October, 6pm: ‘The Political Network’ with Graeme Archer and Oliver Kamm
George Orwell Memorial Lecture 2011
We’re delighted to announce that this year’s Orwell Lecture, organised by the Orwell Trust and Birkbeck College, University of London, will be given by Alan Rusbridger, editor-in-chief of Guardian News and Media. Alan will be speaking on ‘Hacking away at the truth: an investigation and its consequences’ at the Darwin Theatre, UCL, London WC1E 6BT at 6pm on 10 November 2011.
Tickets are free, but RSVP is essential – email events@bbk.ac.uk to reserve a place.
From the archive
A new campaign has emerged to help independent bookshops called ‘Sober October’ – buy books, not beer. Orwell wrote a good deal on both. On beer, there’s his essay on the perfect pub, ‘The Moon Under Water’, and a review of a Mass Observation report called ‘The Pub and the People’. On books, there’s his ‘Bookshop Memories’ of working at a bookstore, ‘Books vs. Cigarettes’, ‘Confessions of a Book Reviewer’ and ‘Good Bad Books’.
Meanwhile, Orwell fan Will Self is to present his first ‘A Point of View’ on BBC Radio 4 – a series which helped Clive James win a Special Orwell Prize in 2008. You can listen to Will talking to journalist Philip Gourevitch about Orwell’s legacy on the Paris Review website, or read him on Orwell and Jura. He writes about the 2003 docudrama, George Orwell: A Life in Pictures, which you can watch on our website along with a Q&A with producer, Chris Durlacher.
From elsewhere
- Scottish indie bookseller, Mainstreet Trading, has Jeremy Paxman visiting on 30 October – Paxman’s introduction to Orwell’s essays is available on the Telegraph website, and you can buy the edition from Penguin
- GQ notes that Orwell described the Scottish island of Jura as ‘extremely unget-at-able’ – the BBC archive has a letter with directions which Orwell sent to his friend and radio producer, Rayner Heppenstall
- Juliet Gardiner, shortlisted for Wartime in 2005, talks about the Mass Observation archive on 12 October at the University of Sussex
- Owen Hatherley, longlisted for this year’s Book Prize for The New Ruins of Great Britain, wrote about regeneration on a Sheffield housing estate…
- …while Steve Richards, longlisted for Whatever It Takes, wrote about Ed Miliband, David Cameron and the battle of ideas
- Sarah Hall, writing for The Guardian on independent bookshops, began her piece by referring to Orwell’s ‘Bookshop Memories’
- Blog Prize winner Graeme Archer wrote that Orwell is one of ‘The Lefties it’s OK to love’
- Juliet Jacques, longlisted for this year’s Blog Prize and author of a piece on Rayner Heppenstall, speaks to Westminster Skeptics on Monday
- As part of Banned Book Week, Salon’s Laura Miller writes a lighter piece about classics which should be banned – including Animal Farm. Read more about Animal Farm (and why it shouldn’t be banned!) on our website
The Wartime Diaries
The next entry will be published on 14th March.
The Hop-Picking Diaries
The next and final entry will be published on 8th October.
The Wigan Pier Diaries
The final entry was published on 25th March. If you’ve got any suggestions about our website(s), we’d love to hear from you – email us on gavin.freeguard@mediastandardstrust.org or follow us on Twitter. And you can subscribe to this newsletter via email.