activist writer par excellence

 

“As an essayist he was supreme. He could turn out a short article on a slight topic…which not only shone forth as crystalline prose pieces but also affirmed his enduring humanity. He could produce essays of substance and power in which his prose was both persuasive and forceful.

Orwell was the enemy of mealy mouths and weasel words intended to mislead or manipulate. He revealed in the starkest way the threat which not only totalitarianism offers to individual freedom and thought (and literature, its finest expression) but also science unconstrained by morality.”

- Gordon Bowker, biographer, on George Orwell

 

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