Orwell's 1984 turns 60
David Pryce-Jones writes -
Sixty years ago, George Orwell published 1984, and I can think of no work of fiction in the past century with a comparable influence right across the world. Plenty of writers had already warned about the twin horrors of Nazism and Communism, and many of them had first-hand experience of these totalitarianisms. Orwell was telling a story about what it would be like to live in such a nightmare society. From the novel's opening sentence in which the clocks are striking thirteen, the reader finds himself in the grip of an imagination so true and so detailed that it has far more power than any political tract could have. . .
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