George Orwell Now! - Preface by Richard Blair, Son of George Orwell

George Orwell remains an iconic figure today – even though he died in 1950. His dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four depicts a Big Brother society in which the state intrudes into the most intimate details of people's lives – and, not surprisingly, it became a constant reference point after Edward Snowden's revelations. The word "Orwellian" is constantly in the media – used either as a pejorative adjective to evoke totalitarian terror or as a complimentary adjective to mean "displaying outspoken intellectual honesty".
Interest in Orwell's life and writings – globally – continues unabated.Beginning with a preface by Richard Blair, Orwell's son, George Orwell Now ! brings together thirteen chapters by leading international scholars in four thematic sections : Peter Marks on Orwell and the history of surveillance studies ; Florian Zollmann on Nineteen Eighty-Four in 2014 ; Henk Vynckier on Orwell's collecting project ; and Adam Stock on ‘Big Brother's Literary Offspring' Paul Anderson "In Defence of Bernard Crick"; Luke Seaber on the "London Section of Down and Out in Paris and London"; John Newsinger on "Orwell's Socialism"; and Philip Bounds on "Orwell and the Anti-Austerity Left in Britain" Marina Remy on the "Writing of Otherness in Burmese Days and Keep the Aspidistra Flying"; Sreya Mallika Datta and Utsa Mukherjee on "Reassessing Ambivalence in Orwell's Burma"; and Shu-chu Wei on Orwell's Animal Farm alongside Chen Jo-his's Mayor Yin Tim Crook on "Orwell and the Radio Imagination"; and editor Richard Lance Keeble on "Orwell and the War Reporter's Imagination"Peter Stansky, in an afterword, argues that Orwell is now more relevant than ever before.