The Importance of Being Orwell

July 9, 2012

Vanity Fair | August 2012
By Christopher Hitchens


George Orwell’s best-known work (Animal Farm, Nineteen Eighty-Four) emerged from painstaking investigation. In the introduction to a groundbreaking volume of Orwell’s diaries, V.F.’s late columnist dissects one of the 20th century’s greatest political minds, a writer who was also his lifelong inspiration. 


http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2012/08/christopher-hitchens-george-orwell

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thank you to whoever maintains this website. Hitch's writings enriched my life greatly and it is somewhat of a comfort to know there is a place where fellow Hitch appreciators can congregate to share the sadness of their loss and celebrate the undying legacy that Hitch has left us with.

Anonymous said...

I wholeheartedly agree. This site will continue as a daily dedication to the greatest writer and intellect of our generation.

Something else in this Vanity Fair piece has given me hope. Did anyone notice that the essay was © 2012 by the "Estate of Christopher Hitchens"?

I am hoping Mrs. Blue will use this estate to organize future collections of essays, and perhaps to republish Prepared for the Worst and For the Sake of Argument. There are a couple of other books and essays that have been long out of print that really ought to be available again, either as an eBook (like The Monarchy, which was just re-released) or hardback. I have a copy of The Paris Commune, 1871, and Hitch's introduction to that work is basically the closest we can get to reading his doctoral thesis (his actual doctoral thesis should also be released).

Robert Iddiols said...

even after death, churning up excellence.

 
 
 

Christopher reads from Hitch-22: A Memoir