Two sides of George Orwell : Contrasting perspectives on the author — and the invisible life of his first wife

George Orwell’s warnings about state control and surveillance are often invoked — perhaps as much now, in the age of artificial intelligence and big data, as when he made them at the dawn of the cold war in the 1940s. But if the legacy is secure, his reputation is less so. The legend of the fearless witness who spoke truth to power looks different when viewed through the prisms of postcolonial geopolitics or rebalanced gender relations. Recent work on Orwell’s life and writings has unsettled our sense of the man behind the myth.