If you want to know how free a society is, look at what’s happening in its theatres
Arifa Akbar
Political art helps to debate and confront the challenges in our lives. It is also a record we must return to again and again, says Guardian theatre critic Arifa Akbar
May 2024
Scottish artist receives hundreds of copies of Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four in the post
People around the world have sent the book, with their personal stories, to Edinburgh for an installation to mark its publication 75 years ago
April 2024
Audiobook of the week
1984 by George Orwell audiobook review – a starry cast drive this powerful dramatisation
The best theatre to stream this month
The best theatre to stream this month: Jekyll & Hyde, Daniel Kitson’s Tree and more
February 2024
Burma Sahib by Paul Theroux review – how Eric Blair became George Orwell
Audiobook of the week
Wifedom by Anna Funder audiobook review – the first Mrs Orwell
Animal Farm review – Orwell’s unsettling allegory still resonates in the age of Trump, Johnson and Sunak
Book of the day
Burma Sahib by Paul Theroux review – George Orwell’s Burmese days vibrantly brought to life
December 2023
Full Story
Full Story revisited: Anna Funder on the ‘invisible labour’ behind George Orwell’s writing
Anthony Albanese’s 2023 reading list: what should be on the PM’s bookshelf this summer?
Tony Wood and Natasha Bradshaw, Grattan Institute
November 2023
Sadistic and misogynistic? Row erupts over sex claims in book about George Orwell’s marriage
Author of acclaimed biography Wifedom hits back at critics who say book casts Orwell in an unfairly negative light
October 2023
David Shrigley turns 6,000 The Da Vinci Code novels into Nineteen Eighty-Four
Top 10s
The top 10 allegories in fiction, from Plato to Kafka
Book of the day
Julia by Sandra Newman review – a new Nineteen Eighty-Four
Orwellian nightmares: What I learned about today’s rage culture from rewriting 1984
September 2023
Beasts of England by Adam Biles review – Animal Farm for the post-Brexit era
Beasts of England by Adam Biles review – timely successor to Animal Farm
August 2023
Wifedom by Anna Funder review – Mrs Orwell comes up for air
The Stasiland author re-examines the short life of George Orwell’s first wife, Eileen O’Shaughnessy, in an effort to give her a voice
Book of the day
Wifedom: Mrs Orwell’s Invisible Life by Anna Funder review – inside a troubled marriage
This feminist reimagining of the fierce and witty Eileen O’Shaughnessy strips her of agency all over again
The Guardian view on invisible women: cancelled by history, restored with care
Editorial: A new book on George Orwell’s first wife examines how Eileen O’Shaughnessy’s life was erased
