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Looking for wonder and some reprieve from the everyday, Anna Funder slips into the pages of her hero George Orwell. As she watches him create his writing self, she tries to remember her own …
And when she uncovers his forgotten wife, it’s a revelation. Eileen O’Shaughnessy’s literary brilliance shaped Orwell’s work and her practical nous saved his life. But why – and how – was she written out of the story?
Using newly discovered letters from Eileen to her best friend, Funder recreates the Orwells’ marriage, through the Spanish Civil War and WWII in London. As she rolls up the screen concealing Orwell’s private life she is led to question what it takes to be a writer – and what it is to be a wife.
Compelling and utterly original, Wifedom speaks to the unsung work of women everywhere today, while offering a breathtakingly intimate view of one of the most important literary marriages of the 20th century. It is a book that speaks to our present moment as much as it illuminates the past.
Looking for wonder and some reprieve from the everyday, Anna Funder slips into the pages of her hero George Orwell. As she watches him create his writing self, she tries to remember her own …
And when she uncovers his forgotten wife, it’s a revelation. Eileen O’Shaughnessy’s literary brilliance shaped Orwell’s work and her practical nous saved his life. But why – and how – was she written out of the story?
Using newly discovered letters from Eileen to her best friend, Funder recreates the Orwells’ marriage, through the Spanish Civil War and WWII in London. As she rolls up the screen concealing Orwell’s private life she is led to question what it takes to be a writer – and what it is to be a wife.
Compelling and utterly original, Wifedom speaks to the unsung work of women everywhere today, while offering a breathtakingly intimate view of one of the most important literary marriages of the 20th century. It is a book that speaks to our present moment as much as it illuminates the past.
A blazing, genre-bending masterpiece from one of the most inventive writers of our time, Anna Funder.
Anna Funder is one of Australia’s most acclaimed and awarded
writers. Her books Stasiland and All That I Am are both
prize-winning international bestsellers, translated into many
languages. Anna’s non-fiction work Wifedom: Mrs Orwell's Invisible
Life was a finalist for the Women’s Prize for Non-Fiction, won the
2024 ABIA Award for Biography of the Year and won the 2024
BookPeople Award for Adult Non-Fiction Book of the Year. Wifedom
was selected as a Notable Book of 2023 by the New York Times and a
Book of the Year by The Times, The Economist, the Financial Times,
the Daily Telegraph (UK) and The Telegraph (UK).
Anna’s books have received many other prestigious awards, including
the Samuel Johnson (now Baillie Gifford) Prize for best non-fiction
published in English for Stasiland, and Australia’s premier prize
for fiction, the Miles Franklin, for All That I Am. Her essays have
been widely published and anthologised. Anna is a University of
Technology Sydney Luminary and Ambassador. In 2011 she was named in
the ‘Top 100 People of Influence’ by the Sydney Morning Herald and
appointed to the Literature Board of the Australia Council for the
Arts.
After several years in Brooklyn, NY, Anna now lives in Sydney.
Australian actress and voiceover artist Arianwen Parkes-Lockwood
has always been an avid reader and lover of audiobooks. Completing
her acting training at NIDA, she is best known for her work as the
thoroughly British Olivia Bligh in the internationally acclaimed
Australian period drama, A Place to Call Home. Other acting credits
include The Crucible and Gallipoli with Sydney Theatre Company,
Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries and Underbelly: Razor. Storytelling
through narration is a great passion for Arianwen and she is
delighted to be voicing for Bolinda. Jane Slavin is an English
actress who has performed on stage, television, radio and for
audiobooks. She has narrated books by Matt Wesolowski, TM Logan and
Anna Funder and appeared on BBC Radio for a variety of dramas,
including Doctor Who: The Paradise of Death. She was winner of the
BBC Carelton Hobbs Award. On television, you can find her in The
Good Ship Murder, Call The Midwife, Coronation Street, Always and
Everyone, Doctors, Heartbeat and Holby City. She starred in and
wrote an episode of ATA Girl (Big Finish/Audible) which was
nominated for a BBC Audio Drama Award.
'Simply, a masterpiece. Here, Anna Funder not only re-makes the art
of biography, she resurrects a woman in full.'
*Geraldine Brooks, bestselling author*
'Meticulous and compassionate ... a heroic act of listening.' (on
Stasiland)
*London Review of Books*
'Rigorously researched, tenderly told.' (on Stasiland)
*The Independent*
'A sharp, captivating look at a complicated
relationship and a resurrection of a vital figure in Orwell’s
life.’
*Kirkus Reviews*
‘Full of keen psychological insight and eloquent prose, this
shines.’
*Publishers Weekly*
‘One of the most startling explorations of life-writing (Eileen’s,
Orwell’s and Funder’s) in recent times . . . Wifedom is a
genre-bending tour-de-force that resurrects an invisible woman . .
. after Funder, we will never look at this writer or his work in
the same way again. Nor should we.’
*The Independent*
‘A virtuoso performance on the theme, adding personal memoir, some
fictional reconstructions and a glittering sense of purpose.’
*The New York Times*
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