The Orwell Prize

August 19, 2008 4 Comments

If you’re like me, the genius of George Orwell was lost upon you when you were sitting in your high school english class, counting the seconds until freedom and scratching your initials into your desk, while you were supposed to be reading and appreciating classics like “Animal Farm” or “1984″.

For me, it wasn’t until after graduation that I went back to re-read these writings from Orwell. It wasn’t until then that, after I had a bit of life experience on my resume, that I was able to actually understand what he was writing about. It wasn’t until then that I was able to appreciate and respect Orwell for writing about the topics he did, in the way he presented them, at the unsteady period in time he was forced to endure.

That’s why it’s so cool that The Orwell Prize is releasing his diary entries in blog form.

The Orwell Prize, Britain’s pre-eminent prize for political writing, is publishing George Orwell’s diaries as a blog. From 9th August 2008, Orwell’s domestic and political diaries (from 9th August 1938 until October 1942) will be posted in real-time, exactly 70 years after the entries were written.

…The diaries are exactly as Orwell wrote them. Where there are original spelling errors, they are indicated by a ° following the offending word.

For those of you who live, breathe and eat with your RSS reader handy, you can subscribe to the feed and read George Orwell’s daily ruminations without having to remember the blog address.

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Ramblings of the Dan
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  • http://caniv.com/ Karl

    Orwellophile – Someone who is fascinated by the vision of George Orwell’s dystopia.

  • http://nuke718.livejournal.com/ Nuke

    Thanks for the heads up!

    Never read Animal Farm (I should, I know) but was amazed with 1984.

  • Richard W.
  • http://www.steve-olson.com Steve Olson

    Dan,

    I am excited to read his diaries. Reading Orwell in high school (or was it Jr. High) was one of the highlights of my traditional education. I loved it and understood it clearly. My wife said it was also his were the only books she liked from her stint in school. If more people understood what he was saying we’d have a very different society. Everyone reads it, few understand it.